I think the Headmistress was confused, but her eyes stayed round and soft, and her smile stayed wide and dimpled.
“In my own small way, I also want to make a contribution,” Mrs. Reddy swept her arm out, so that her sari flapped like a butterfly wing. “That’s why I am donating a water purifier to every classroom, and a set of toilets.”
(Which you’ll notice, Mrs. Naidu, we didn’t ask for at all.)
“This afternoon, the electric purifiers will be installed so that the children have drinking water,” Mrs. Reddy said, shaking her head and sucking her teeth. “The poor things have gone without it too long. As for the toilets, I am currently working with the BEO to install them.”
Then Mrs. Reddy picked up a water purifier, put on her best Fevicol-pasted-smile, and posed. The cameras flashed.
“This is what it takes, is it?” Hema Aunty snapped. “A press conference?”
“It’s not the media, Hema,” Amma said. “It’s something far more powerful.”
“Rich people?” Hema Aunty asked.
Amma shook her head, and said, “Shame.”
“Psssh,” Hema Aunty said. “Look at that woman. She has no shame.”
“I don’t know,” Deepti said, “Sujatha Aunty might be right.”
We watched as Mrs. Reddy put on a show, posing, holding up the water purifiers that needed electricity that only came once a day, and standing next to the toilets that we had no money to install.
“So she gets to donate toilets, and no one wants to support my tuition program idea?” Amir asked. “Yuck.”
“Super yuck,” I agreed.
“Who cares?” Deepti said. “Now we have drinking water, and who knows. Maybe we’ll even use the toilets. Let her have her photos.”
Which I thought was kind of wise, until Deepti yelled at the reporters, “Oy! That’s enough.”
Finally Vimala Madam made Annie Miss speak, and although her words were wobbly at first, before long, they steadied into her just-and-beautiful-world voice.
“I want to thank everyone for coming together to support our school,” she said. “But most of all, I want to honour our students. They are the ones who came up with these ideas. They took it upon themselves to learn about the law, and to lead all of these efforts. I also want to honour the mothers of our community, who are some of the smartest, bravest, toughest women I have ever met. I am so happy and humbled to have gotten to know all of them better, and to have been a small part of this. And I am so, so proud.”
Then her voice broke, and she wiped her eyes.
Normally Annie Miss’s routine doesn’t affect me. But today, my eyes got watery.
(I think I saw Deepti rub her eyes too, Mrs. Naidu. But I wouldn’t say that on the record.)
“Child Rights Club members, can you please come up here?” Miss said.
I started to go to the front, when Deepti grabbed Amir’s wrist.
“Come on,” she said.
“But I’m not in the club,” Amir said.
“You’re in our club,” Deepti said.
So I took Amir’s right hand, and Deepti took Amir’s left hand, and the three of us stood together in front of the flashing cameras. Rohini Reporter stopped clicking and leaned in for a second and said to Deepti, “You were right.”
“I was?” Deepti said.
“This is a great story,” she said.
I looked around the room at all the aunties and Deepti’s Appa and Vimala Madam and Amir and Deepti and Annie Miss and Amma and even Mrs. Reddy and the HMs. I looked out the door at the dirt where we were about to dig a playground and the rickshaws full of water purifiers and toilets. I looked at Abhi, who was jumping up and down and clapping, even though he wasn’t sure what was going on.
I thought about how in a few years, he might go to a school full of trophies and artwork, where the teachers never hit anyone.
Most of all, I thought about how I was standing in the front of all these reporters holding hands with my best my two best friends.
Do you know what that feels like, Mrs. Naidu?
It feels like forgetting the earth.
It feels like moving the skies.
All the best,
Sarojini
About Mrs. Sarojini Naidu
The book that Sarojini reads about Mrs. Naidu does not actually exist. Luckily, you can learn more about Sarojini Naidu’s work as a poet, traveller, freedom fighter, and feminist the same way I did: by reading her own words.
Mrs. Naidu is most famous for her poetry. She has published many books of poems, including The Golden Threshold, The Bird of Time, and The Broken Wing. After Mrs. Naidu’s death, her daughter, Padmaja, collected some of her mother’s as yet unpublished poems in The Feather of the Dawn.
Although Mrs. Naidu considered herself to be a poet first and foremost, she was also a gifted speaker. You can read her speeches in Sarojini Naidu: Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by Makarand R. Paranjape, and Ideas of a Nation (Words of Freedom) published by Penguin Group.
Finally, just like Sarojini, Mrs. Naidu loved writing letters. You can read some of these in The Mahatma and the Poetess (Being a Selection of Letters Exchanged Between Gandhiji and Sarojini Naidu), compiled by E.S. Reddy and edited by Mrinalini Sarabhai, and Sarojini Naidu: Selected Letters, 1890s to 1940s, edited by Makarand R. Paranjape.
Organizations Working for Child Rights
Although this book is a work of fiction, the issues that it deals with are real. In India, a number of groups are working towards helping every child realize his or her rights. Below is a list of organizations where you can get involved and learn more. As Sarojini, Deepti, Amir, and Mrs. Naidu would surely tell you, you’re never too young to make a difference.
Childline, India
Tel: 91-22-24952610, 24952611, 24821098, 24901098, 24911098
www.childlineindia.org.in
(Visit the website for contact information for local branches.)
Child Rights and You (CRY)
632, Lane No.3, Westend Marg,
Near Saket Metro Station, Saiyad-ul-Ajaib
New Delhi - 110 030.
Tel: 91-11-29533451/52/53
www.cry.org
(Visit the website for contact information for branches in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai/ Pune, and Delhi.)
National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, Government of India
5th Floor, Chanderlok Building,
36 Janpath, New Delhi-110001
Phone: 91-11-23478200
www.ncpcr.gov.in
(Visit the website for contact information for state chapters of the commission.)
People’s Watch
6A, Vallabhai Road, Chokkikulam,
Madurai – 625002,
Phone: 91-452–2539520,
www.peopleswatch.org
(Visit the website for contact information throughout Tamilnadu.)
Right to Education Forum
(On the premises of the Council for Social Development)
53, Sangha Rachna,
Lodi Estate, New Delhi
Phone: 91-11-24615383, 24611700, 24616061, 24693065, 24692655
www.rteforumindia.org/
South Indian Cell for Human Rights Education
35,1st Floor, Anjanappa Complex,
Hennur Main Road, Lingarajapuram,
St. Thomas Town Post,
Bangalore - 560084, Karnataka, India
Phone: 91-80-25473922 / 25804072-73
www.sichrem.org
The Concerned For Working Children
303/2, L B Shastri Nagar Vimanapura Post
Bangalore 560 017
Phone: 91-80-25234611
www.concernedforworkingchildren.org
Acknowledgements
Books may have one author, but they are never created by just one person. So many people helped me bring Sarojini and the gang to life, and it’s my honour to
thank them here.
Thanks to the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship office that funded the fieldwork that informed this book. Especially big thanks to Maya Sivakumar, S.K. Bharati, and Vinita Tripathi, the best fellowship administration staff in the world.
Thanks to the ICDS staff, union folks, and anganwadi-going families who let me into their lives. Especially big thanks to Geetha, Sujatha, Sumitra, Varalakshmi, and Yashoda for their patience and friendship, and to their students for putting up with the weird Aunty who sat in the corner for almost two years, watching and asking questions.
Thanks to Chitra Aiyar, Karishma Gulrajani, and Esa Syed for feedback on early drafts. Thanks to Greeshma Patel for co-organizing the photography project that gave me new insight into Bangalore’s schools and slums. Special thanks to Dinyar Patel, historical consultant extraordinaire, and Monisha Bajaj, RTE expert and fairy god-Amma. Extra special thanks to Rohini Mohan for tireless reading and rereading, afternoons spent working and “working,” and doses of encouragement and sanity when I needed them most.
Thanks to Meera Nair for her publishing advice, Minal Hajratwala for her unwavering fairy godmothering, and V.V. Ganeshananthan for her years and years and years of dedicated best friendship (if I could’ve read this whole book to you over the phone, I would’ve.) Thanks to Niranjan Aradhya and the team at MAKASA for being my first foray into child-led RTE advocacy. Thanks to Sujatha Akka for the warm meals, Tamil tuitions, and for being the inspiration for Sarojini’s Amma.
Thanks to Anita Roy, the editor of every girl’s dreams, for her patience, kindness, and generosity, and for the opportunity to publish with Zubaan, a press I have loved for over a decade.
As always, the biggest thanks go to my family. Thanks to Prema Narasimhan (aka mother-in-law) for showing me India and giving me space to write and dream in Coimbatore. Thanks to Bamini Subramanian (aka Mom) for being the inspiration behind every strong woman character I have ever written and will ever write, for putting up with all my writerly and non-writerly drama, and for always believing in me. Thanks to Ram Subramanian (aka thambi) for reading an initial draft, growing up into the feminist little brother I always knew he would become, and being the only person in the world who always gets my jokes. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Santhosh Ramdoss (aka husband) for moving across the world for me, encouraging me to write this book from the moment it was just a passing thought on the Shatabdi, and standing by my side with encouragement and good humor through this and every other creative endeavor. You are the ones who make me forget the earth, and inspire me to move the skies.
Dear Mrs. Naidu Page 19
