I was going to write about the adventurous journey back from Khajuraho to Bhopal to Indore which took us 12 hours to drive 500km parts of which ( 60 km) were on the worst roads I have ever seen.
But i want to write about the babies, babies and more babies and their mothers. I happen to visit my mother's old friend and our good friend Praveen's mom who lives few houses down from my childhood home. She was doing something in the backyard and when I asked her what was she doing, she showed me this totally inspirational story book thing. She ( an upper middle class house wife with grown up and gone kids) collects old news papers in kilos and sells them to a junk collector. She also collects the old clothes and sheets etc from local five star hotels and other places and converts everything into "gift kits" ( containing two outfits for new born, vitamins, calcium, mosquito net and some version of a potion) and goes herself to distribute in the local hospitals. She has the system stream lined to the extend she gives employment to several women from slums for converting the discarded stuff into baby blankets, clothes and diapers, uses the money from selling papers to buy other stuff. I was totally impressed...then she called this morning to see if i will like to go with her to see the new moms in the hospital. Of course I was...
We left with two young guys and several bags of stuff ( kits and saris) and went to a local hospital five minutes drive away. ( i lived here 24 years of my life never thought of stepping inside this government( translation poor people's ) hospital ). There were 45 new deliveries in last 24 hours and we gave kits to all of them explaining the use of vitamins and calcium and the potion ( high protein food) . These women just had babies two to six hours before, the babies were right there with them and most seemed happy and normal.
Besides being a heart warming deed, there are several interesting things about all this:
1) All these women were paid 400 Rs and were brought in a car or bus to the hospital from nearby villages. The Government is trying to get people to use safe delivery methods and protect women and new born.
2) We ( meaning Auntie) encouraged everyone to use the birth control or get the "operation" done. All of them said either a) need permission form the husband b) have only girls and will wait till the boy comes c) if there was one boy they wanted one more. Ones who agree to get the "operation" done got 600 Rs more plus a saree... Government is using all means to educate the women and empower them , still there was a clear message of "WE WANT BOYS ONLY" there were few who were all alone and two that the husband and in laws had refused to come to take them and their little GIRL home.
It is a mixed feeling seeing all these women. There is so much need and so much 'life is unfairness" going on that to me it seems like the only way to address this by by education , empowerment of women and most of all people like Auntie. Yet, the babies were beautiful and the women were truly happy with the things they got from us. Auntie said they tried giving money instead but the husbands with take the money and use it it get drunk :(
Rest of the day, I have been resting and socializing. Oh, i also did the Yoga this morning in the Yashwant ( remember the upscale who;s who club) and I have to say the Leslie's Yoga in Los Altos is lot more authentic than what i did today. Another observation, Yoga is thousands of year old Indian practice and is called YOG ( meaning discipline) but just a few years of Americanization even the people in India call it YOGA..( i guess it makes them look and feel modern) So, i do not have to feel guilty about calling it yoga.
Time for a nice sleep...good night..saroj
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