The Start

She looked down at herself
she saw two arms, ten
fingers, a trunk, two legs.

She looked down at her morphed self
and yet again, she saw two
bumps,  ten painted nails.

She looked down
But she couldn't look up.

Her head felt heavy
her neck felt weak
her shoulders hurt
her heart simply stopped.

One look, one touch,
one kiss, one hug.
A word, a tune
a note, a game.

She thought, she turned
alas, she mourned.
But no matter what, her heart
was frozen, forever in time.

No, it couldn't be.
It had to change, it had to beat,
it had to smile, it had to feel.

And as she sat, waiting,
she decided she'd look up
again. Soon.

Ida Scudder - Doctor

Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder (9th December 1870 - 24th May 1960) was a third generation American medical missionary in India. in 1918, she started one of Asia's foremost teaching hospitals, the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore, India.

As a child in India, she saw much famine, poverty and disease and thus did not relish the idea of spending her adulthood here. After struggling in the United States, she had to return to India to help her ailing mother at the mission bungalow at Tindivanam. But, during that stay, she had the enlightening experience of not being able to help three women in child birth, who died needlessly in one night. She was convinced that God wanted her to become a physician to help the women of India. She never married.

She graduated from Cornell Medical College in New York City in 1899, as a part of the first class at that school that accepted women as medical students. She then headed back to India, fortified with a $10,000 grant from a Manhatten banker in memory of his wife. With the money, she set up a tiny dispensary and clinic for women at Vellore (75 miles from Madras). In two years, she treated over 5,000 patients. As a consequence, she opened the Mary Taber Sehell Hospital in 1902.

The idea that Indian women must be taught to care for other Indian women led Ida to create Vellore's nursing school. As soon as it opened, she set her sights yet higher - if she could train nurses, she could train doctors. In no time at all, Vellore became a medical college. Friends abroad helped her raise funds to support Vellore as it grew. A common ideology among them prevailed - what you are building is not a medical school but a kingdom of God.

Scudder died at the age of 90 of a circulatory ailment in Kodaikanal.

The Mother - Philosopher

Mirra Alfassa (21st Febuary 1878 - 17th November 1973), also known as 'The Mother', was a philosopher and a spiritual partner of Sri Aurobindo.

The Mother

Mirra was born in Paris to an Egyptian mother and Turkish father. She had divine visions from her childhood. Outwardly, she was brought up as a materialistic atheist. Mirra had a good education in music (specially piano), painting and higher mathematics.

She had various spiritual experiences during her growing up years which she understood much later. These added up to help her develop her philosophy of life, the importance of keeping the human body strong, emotions under control, spiritual being in touch with God and mental body challenged with knowledge constantly.

In 1897, she married Henry Morisset and had a son named Andre. In 1910, she married a second time to Paul Richard. It was he who introduced her to Sri Aurobindo in 1914.

Sri Aurobindo

In December 1926, Sri Aurobindo identified Mirra with the Divine Mother and she took full charge of the Ashram. He then lived in retirement. Through the remaining years of her life, Mother worked on Supramental Truth Consciousness, a new power of the spirit that Sri Aurobindo had discovered.

The Mother wrote extensively on life, it's meaning and philosophised it's purpose. Her teachings are embodied in the work still carried on at the Ashram in Pondicherry and New Delhi. Her basic philosophy guides the running of two school, the Mother's International School and Mirambika in New Delhi.

Mirambika Free Progress School

Mother's International School

Woman Power

Hey everyone! I'm sorry for not having blogged for a bit, but things just get completely mushy and I got so caught up in it all... Anyway, to make up for the last two weeks' irregularity, I'll post everyday for this week!!

My theme is going to be WOMAN POWER - a study of women leaders in seven different fields of life - Philosophy, Politics, Law, Medicine, Social Work, Battle Field and Revolts. The women I have chosen belong to the international arena of the 19th and 20th century.

My purpose is only to show you all the major impact women have been able to create despite the hurdles they faced and add to the current awareness about importance of the girl child, which may have become obvious in the urban regions, but is still struggling to find roots in the rural regions. Thus, I've focussed on the early and mid-life influences on these women, which motivated them to struggle to achieve and change the norms of the society in which they lived in.

For some women, I have also tried to analyse their psyche at a very basic level, in relation to what I have learnt in my school. This seemed to give me a greater depth into their life and inspired me even more!

It is because of them that women around the world today can stand on their own feet and fight for their rights as equal citizens of the world. I hope they are able to inspire you as much as they inspired me, and change your lives for the better...

My Sister's Keeper

I wrote this article a year or so ago when I first saw the movie My Sister's Keeper. I had read the book before that, cried for an entire day and was shaken for much longer (if not a month then at least a fortnight). I finally had the guts to sit down and watch the movie, and that's when I just couldn't hold it back. You see, every time I get effected physically, mentally, emotionally or psychologically, the only thing I can think of doing is picking up a pen and writing down what ever comes to my mind. And so, I decided to write a movie review on this story. The only reason I opted for the movie over the book was that the book is so much more complicated and has so many folds to it that I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it justice at that particular point of time. I've blogged about my sister, Gayatri, before and it was because of her that the movie/ book struck me so strongly.

I don’t know how many of you have a sibling, the age doesn’t matter, but I know I have a younger sister. And I know the kind of bond that we share is truly special, and if anyone, anyone at all, tried so much as to even touch that, they would be real sorry. Yet in this movie, I see an 11 year old girl who actually tries killing her own sister; a sister who she knows is sick and needs her help, a sister who she knows will always love her even if she doesn’t help, a sister who she needs to protect...from cancer.

And that is just where things start getting messed up. Anna is an 11 year old girl who has never seen a ‘normal day’, not even as an infant. As it happens, she was conceived to be a genetic match for her older sister, Kate, who suffers from acute leukaemia, a form of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow of one’s body. Kate’s parents, Sara and Brian, and her younger brother, Jesse, weren’t genetic matches for her, and so, her parents decided to try save their first child by means of ‘creating’ a genetic match. Thus, since the day Anna was born, her body has been used to save her dying sister. It started off with Anna’s umbilical cord, and though that saved her elder sister temporarily, the illness never really got completely cured, and Kate has been in and out of the hospital for the past few years.

Anna is ignored by her parents quite completely. They don’t ask her whether she’s comfortable going into surgery frequently, they take it for granted. A time comes when she has to give away one of her kidneys, and doing this means that she can never play soccer, do cheerleading or become a mother; and yet again, her permission is not sought but assumed. That is, till she starts asking for her rights. All she wants is the right over her own body; to be able to say whether or not she wants to donate her body, and its organs, to her sister. And to do this, Anna fights in the court with the help of a lawyer she hired. As it turns out, her lawyer, Campbell, agrees to fight this case because he suffers from epilepsy and often loses control of his own body, hence relating to Anna.

The movie shifts perspective from person to person, never really focusing on any one person. So, just when you start believing that Anna is being selfish for not even trying to help her sister, you are taken through Anna’s life, rather than Kate’s, and you see that she has never been able to live life to the fullest. Even though she is younger to Kate, Anna has to live like the older sister, never quite having the care free life younger sisters can enjoy. And just when you start believing that their mom, Sara, is the monster mom for having slapped Anna for demanding this basic right and fighting the law-suite against her child herself (being an ex-lawyer), you are taken to Kate’s life and you see the kind of things Sara has done; she sacrificed her whole life just who help her daughter, giving up the successful career that made her who she really was; she went bald just so Kate wouldn’t feel embarrassed of stepping out hairless due to her chemotherapy.

And in the middle of all this chaos lies Jesse, the brother that never really was a part of the family. His parents didn’t even know about his life or school, till they are suddenly told that he suffers from dyslexia. And to cope with that he is sent off to boarding school.

What really makes the entire thing feel so up close is that all this is strung through Kate’s diary, a book that shows each of her family members individually. The diary is a source through which we, as the audience, get to know that Kate feels responsible for ruining her family and their lives completely. This movie is a true tearjerker, really bringing out the true meaning of family, that of sister hood and mother hood.

To view the original post, go to:

http://blog.buzzintown.com/2010/06/why-my-sisters-keeper-is-special/

Stardom

If you guys don't already know, I study at Vasant Valley School. The school is absolutely the most brilliant system I have ever seen, and accepted that I haven't seen all that many, but I have seen enough to know how to differentiate between a good system and a bad one. As part of trying to develop students into well rounded individuals, they help us take part in a variety of activities, like the one organised on the 18^th of February for star gazing.

When I reached the school, the terrace was crowded with children.  Kids from junior school were all there, standing in queues in front of the telescopes, waiting to see the moon. True, the moon looked hazy and yellow, without any craters. Yet, the excitement level could not be subdued by that. One boy had got a laser torch and was busy making patterns on passing air planes, becoming the most wanted boy there. Another girl had gotten her camera and was taking beautiful pictures of the moon.

Full Moon

But the boy that caught my attention was from class four. I’ve known him for a few years and his cuteness has never not made my heart skip a beat! When I started talking to Anirudh Kaushik, he showed me Orion, and told me there was a new star being formed close by. When I asked him how a new star is formed, he was stumped. Pulling me by my hand, he went to someone he thought would know the answer – his older brother. When we couldn’t find the answer there, we looked up a Blackberry. But the explanation flew over our heads. Finally, we approached the science teachers, who directed us towards a man we thought was a scientist.

With the scientist’s stern nature and precise vocabulary, all I got was a gist of three sentences: ‘there are lots of gas and dust particles. When the temperature and pressure rise, they come together. This forms a star.’ I figured this much was enough to satisfy his curiosity and very soon, every student present had heard this version of the birth of a star.



Birth of a Star



However, less than a few minutes had passed before Anirudh was tugging my arm again. “Didi didi, I forgot!” Laughing I asked him what a dust particle was. His face told me I needed to explain. Then, I asked him about temperature. He explained this to me in an animated voice, with plenty of hand gestures. Happy, I demonstrated pressure to him, by pressing his head down. He understood in no time at all. Eventually, he seemed to comprehend the entire concept.

I thought the job was done. However, he came to me fifteen odd minutes later, wanting me to repeat the story again. I realised that he needed input that would last, something interactive and memorable. So, I conducted a short and sweet skit with a group of children, while Anirudh watched on. Each child became a dust particle, and when I said “GO” and moved my hands around to indicate rise in temperature and pressure, they circled and came towards one point.

The Play

The expression on Anirudh’s face made a few things quite certain in my mind. First, this was the only time he had actually figured out the answer. Second, it wasn’t going to leave him in a hurry. And third, every child in his class was going to hear about it the next day.

This small incident made me realise something many educationists around the world still don’t understand  something that Vasant Valley has been implementing for years. Traditional methods of learning are not efficient. If a child rote learns, his/ her exams may go off well, just like Anirudh was able to parrot the statement to every one for the first few minutes. However, that learning doesn’t stay with a person very long, needs constant repetition and is near impossible to apply. Instead, interactive learning, which is active and forms a kind of story or something else that is easy to remember, usually stays with a person for much longer, exactly like the play got crystallised in Anirudh’s mind. And that is the kind of learning we need today.

You Don't Pollute a Goddess, Do You?

My next article is about the Yamuna Yatra that students of my school (Vasant Valley) undertake in Class 11. I wrote this a year ago and had it published in a website called BuzzinTown (www.buzzintown.com). Now that I've started blogging, it seemed right to post this one here!

Standing on the banks of the Yamuna, every five minutes you will find someone coming in and throwing a bag full of garbage into the river that is already black and bubbling with methane. And if you ask them to stop polluting the water that they drink at home, they look at you as though you need to see a doctor. It was to stop this attitude and create awareness about the capital’s river that the Yamuna Yatra first came about.

River Yamuna at Delhi

The Yamuna Yatra is a 12-day long journey organised by an NGO called “Swechha – We for Change”. The idea was to travel along the river, observing how it begins pure in the hills, but slowly gets polluted on reaching the plains. For this, we camped on the banks of Yamuna, living without the comforts of the city life we take for granted. We lived in tents even in the freezing cold 10,000 ft altitude. There was no electricity, but abundance of ice cold water coming from Yamuna.

The river served as our lifeline. It gave us water to bathe in; to cook and drink; it served as a map we could follow; it gave us water to splash onto others and have fun; it gave us the scenic background against which we took photographs; it gave us the knowledge that life can be more than just Coke.

During this journey we visited places that we had never even heard of, places like Janki Chatti, Lakhamandal and Ganganani. Trekking became a part of our lives as we did a five kilometre uphill journey to Yamunotri. Once, we were shown three directions, divided into groups and told that villages exist beyond the mountains that we saw ahead of us. We had to find our way to any village, without even the name of the village we were to locate. It was these experiences that taught us how to become independent without throwing us into the deep sea!

Numerous different religions are associated with River Yamuna; Hinduism as Yamuna is the daughter of the Sun God, is worshipped and is a place visited as part of the Tirth Yatra; Muslim as one is to bathe before some important event in one’s life; Buddhism as the Kalsi rock is situated on its banks, which is one of the 14 edicts dating back to Ashokan times; Sikhism as the gurudwara ‘Ponta Sahib’ is also along the banks of the river.

The Yamuna Yatra... there were so many memorable moments! The hot sulphur springs to beat the chill, the "Cook Your Own Meal" activity when we cooked for, hold your breath, 90 people (phew! and that too first time in our lives), the getting lost and the finding the way back by following the irrigation canal dug by villagers, the methane bubbles coming out of the river at Delhi... the experiences could go on and fill an entire book.
 
The fact that this entire Yatra was centred around River Yamuna truly summed up life. One day we were bathing in a pure river in the hills and just a few hours into the next day on the plains, there was a sewage stream in front of us. To quote our instructor, “When the river is in the hands of the uneducated, ‘backward’ people, it is sparkling; but the minute it enters the capital city, full of educated people who know all about the environment, the river has eight meters of sewage on its bed.”

That picture gave me the inspiration to make a change, to ensure that life just doesn't begin and end with materialistic gains of an Ivy League college and career, but contributes a bit more -- in making life purer in our metros.

Those 12 days are the most memorable, fun and meaningful days of my life, one that I will never forget. Seniors had told me that I must go for it, but I never really understood why till I went ahead and saw for myself. It’s hard to describe in words, but I really would have missed out on so much if I hadn’t gone. That fun and learning -- the entire experience was unique.

The Yamuna Yatra is a unique trek cum awareness programme organised by NGO ‘Swechha’ and forms a part of Vasant Valley school activity comprising 50 students, three teachers and three instructors.

To view the original post, go to:

http://www.buzzintown.com/delhi/article-review--you-dont-pollute-goddess-do-you/id--1508.html