Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beyond Rajabazaar, the spheres are also in motion. Thanks to Purnabha I have direct and constant access to the Internet via his home computer, and I start to post here on these boards while still in Kolkata. It feels quite different, to be posting even in an abbreviated way about day to day events. A bit like reporting from the front line. From fellow boardies reactions, I see that this has a more immediate impact on my readers as well. I send a number of p.m.'s, one of which leads to a spontaneous offer of a donation to help Roshni maintain and improve their web site. This in turn has a positive impact on Shahina and her group.

 

Having today been inside some of these tiny homes, and heard Shahina describe to me the kind of urgent interventions she regularly has to make, often in the middle of the night (say, if a woman is being beaten by her husband), I realize that something radical is going to be needed.

 

I share this thought with Purnabha, and he suggests that we take Shahina and Tahsina back to his and Lucina's apartment for a summit meeting. (There will be another such summit towards the end of my trip, though I cannot foresee that at this moment.) Distances are large, so we use Uber to ferry them back and forth, as there isn't really anywhere private to have a meeting in Rajabazaar, including Roshni's base itself

 

The idea I propose to them is actually in part also inspired by this apartment. It is the one that I resourced for Lucina so she could focus on her PhD without the constant family pressures on her back home in Mir Para. After their marriage, she and Purnabha have held on to it.

 

 

At present Roshni is operating from a tiny space - far smaller than photos suggest. Roshni had lost their former base back in March, and the group was at risk of losing cohesion and headway without one, so even this small space we were able to finance was crucial to them. But while it works fairly well as a space for the children, it offers no refuge for the abused women Shahina and Tahsina are supporting.

 

Shahina is being pressured out of the family home, even though her parents are tremendously supportive and always present whenever Roshni holds an event, because one of her brothers is about to get married. The bride will move into the family home, which is already overcrowded.

 

Rita and Phil Holland had met me just before I traveled to offer a significant donation to Roshni which would meet their budgetary requirements for next year. But it would leave no room for growth or significant development.

 

So, I put to them a radical idea.

 

Rita and Phil's donation combined with some funds I had earmarked for a trip with my adopted family to the Sundarbans, might be enough to enable Roshni to move to a bigger base. This could be outside Rajabazaar, within reasonable traveling distance. Being bigger, it would double as a teaching centre and a women's refuge. It would need to be managed on site, so Shahina could be resident, a practical advantage, since she conducts most of the advocacy herself.

 

True, this would leave me to figure out how to replenish the coffers so that Roshni would have an operating budget for projects and events. But if nothing else these could perhaps be managed anecdotally.

 

They were immediately enthusiastic, though they were concerned about what would happen a year on, when a further year's rent would be needed. I said there was no guarantee, but I felt Roshni had nothing to lose. By taking one courageous step, they might become an organization others would want to fund. I told them that my own organization had faced a similar struggle every year, yet we had managed to overcome it each year for more than twenty years. So they agreed.

 

They are presently trying to find an apartment, struggling a little because rents are significantly higher than we'd been advised. But meanwhile the current base is still in operation and paid up until the end of March, so there is yet time to find a solution...

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Be a girl born in Rajabazaar. Sleep on the floor beneath your parents bed, along with four or five brothers and sisters, in a shoe box of a home. Hope that you will not contract a life threatening illness, and that you will survive serious malnourishment and that it will not stunt your growth. Realize that your parents may of necessity arrange to have you illegally married at fourteen, because at that age no bride price will be needed by the groom's family. If you are unlucky, the groom may be decades older than you. Work like a drudge, have many children, and by the time you are twenty you will be worn out. By thirty you will look twenty years older. And you will remember what your parents did, and in the same circumstances perhaps be tempted to do the same in turn to your own daughters...

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

I want to visit Rajabazaar at night, because at night all things are different. What is hidden in the day is often revealed at night, rather than the reverse.

 

I also want to visit once without Purnabha or Lucina, simply because Shahina and others will naturally prefer not to use their limited English if instead they can converse in fluent Hindi. Hence they all talk over me in a language I don't speak, and I rarely get a full translation.

 

I learn that there is a craft fair - a mela - on the other side of Kolkata.

 

I arrange to meet Roshni there on the evening of the 23rd November. The teenage girls brought by Shahina have never been to a mela before.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

By chance, I had discovered that a leading pat painter, Iakub Chitrakar was at the mela. He is quite famous, but I doubt anyone but me realizes this. Here he is simply one of hundreds of craft workers with a booth.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

He has been to the UK on numerous occasions. He is a Muslim, living in a small village in the adjacent state of Bihar, and has trained his entire family in the art of Pat.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Pat paintings are story telling scrolls.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The painters are also performers, who travel from village to village, singing songs of Rama and Sita while unscrolling the story illustrated by their paintings.

 

 

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[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

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I buy some scrolls, with hard bargaining by Tahsina to ensure I get the best price.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

They are no match for her.

 

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[Flex Mentallo]

As we leave with my booty, I ask Shahina and Tahsina if they think it would be a good idea to introduce pat painting and singing to the children, to write, paint, sing and perform, perhaps on the theme of Child Rights? They think it is an excellent idea. I then ask if there is room in the vehicle for me so I can come back to Rajabazaar with them? They are more than happy to take me with them.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

We descend.

 

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[Flex Mentallo]