HonneMardu : A Realisation

Will it be worth taking two days leave from office for going to Honnemardu ??
Will I be able to manage kids?? They may eat my head out.How will I survive in those no electricity, no mobiles, no toilet conditions??Do I really want to take responsibility of 15+ kids for 4 full days? What happens if something goes wrong??

These were the questions blowing in my mind since three days before Honnemardu trip.

Man I was scared.

I have been volunteering with Dream-A-Dream for an year. But never ever did I realise that there is a lot of child hidden behind the veils of activities we are doing through Dream-A-Dream. What we see in activities, fun days ,educational programs conducted by Dream-A-Dream are only certain facets of the lives of the children we are dealing with. There are tons of other feelings, emotions and sentiments which skip from our eyes in the hush hush of the activities.

Honnemardu showed me those feelings, bare and naked.

We started from Blore, with 17 kids, silent, with murmurs within just their own groups (respective NGOs). But on our way back, it was tough to makeout which kid belonged to which NGO. They all were at the top of their voices. And I with my broken Kannada (which I picked up from kids) had to shout 'Galaata Mad Bedaa' at frequent intervals. Whats happened in between going and returning is a lifetime experience, a realisation after which my life will never be same as it was before.

Each and every task with the kids -- from trekking, swimming, boating, eating, sleeping to brushing teeths, watching stars in the night, hearing their heart-tearing stories, washing dishes near the well, pulling water out from the well, sitting across the camp fire --- each and every task was so insightful, so peneterating into their lives. Each one of them had so much to tell us or in other words we had so much to observe in each kid. The way they were taking care of each other, teaching each other how to swim, sharing bedsheets, mats, tiffins … My heart was filled with an unspoken delight.

I want to share some of experiences with you all…. Which sometimes made a hole in my heart and at other times gave me everlasting smile and happiness. Let me talk about some kids. These kids have answered hundereds of my questions but at the same time have given me thousands unanswered questions.

Raja ... 5 years old ... was the youngest kid in our group.
You can easily identify him with his chubby cheeks, running nose and the inability to wear his sandals by himself. He was so quick to remove his sandals before jumping into water but had to find someone to get his sandals back on his feet. 'Uncle …. Sandals Please' was his favorite sentence in the trip.
I caught him once trying to wash his small teddy bear shaped tiffin box near the well. His small fingers rubbing the corners of the box were unable to remove the older food pieces. He kept on trying but in vain. Suddenly I saw him running back towards the queue where the food was getting served. To prevent him to take food in his unwashed box , I called him and washed his box. Other days I wasnt able to check his tiffin box .. and I realise now he would have eaten food in the dirty tiffin box.

I wonder if anybody is checking 5 year old Raja’s tiffin box today ???

6 years old Dilip is nothing but innocence personified.
I never heard him complaining in these four days. With his contagious smile and effervescent enthusiasm, he used to tell me 'Uncle I will skim (swim) alone to there' as a gesture of his courage ..….. And As soon as I started pulling him in water he was scared to death. It took him lot of time , effort and confidence to 'skim alone to there'.

While travelling to Honnemardu he wanted the top berth in the train, but we volunteers were scared that he may fall down. We somehow pursued him to sleep. But while returning he stood inside the train with one hand up pointing to the top berth, face towards me and just repeating 'Uncle Up'. I had to bow down and he slept on the top berth. At night around 2 AM in night I heard a 'Thud' sound and saw Dilip lying on the floor whining slowly. I got down , picked him up , laid him on the nearby berth , asked him if he has been hurt and his reply was 'NO UNCLE'. His reply shocked me. I couldnt think off a 6 year old falling from 2 mts and being fine. This was the height of non-complaining nature.

You can easily think of the mess created by a main stream kid in the same predicament.
Anyways , I sat beside him stroking his head finding it heard to believe he hasnt been hurt.... and slowly he again fell asleep. As I was leaving I thought he might be feeling cold here and picked up his bedsheet from the top berth... and to my surprise his bedsheet was not fully dried. He has kept a wet towel in his bag , due to which the bedsheet also became wet. He was using that wet bedsheet till then to shield cold.

I came back to my berth lost…. in realisations… realisations which never occurred to me throughout my life … and occurred after seeing a little angel covering himself up in the wet bedsheet.

Priya .... 6 year old , the sweetest kid in our group.
She became my teacher and taught me Kannada throughout the trip. Whenever she found me free, she came to me and said 'Unnnduuu (one in kanaada) Uncle' as an indication that I should tell her all the numerals till ten. She clapped when I completed without a mistake and used to tell me 'one mark cut uncle' when I told her some numeral wrong.
She had a habit of forgetting her shoes. I felt like she did not enjoy wearing shoes. One day morning we went for a 6-7 kms long trek. I asked her to wear shoes but she gave no heed. She climbed mountains, passed through thorny bushes , treaded through hot rocks , walked on the dried leaves full of pointed stones... all bare foot. Never ever she complained of a thorn.
I am still surprised.
I just waked a couple of meters bare foot and had so many things troubling my feet.

Once I went to the well to wash my tiffin box. I found her standing there alone. There was no water in buckets and she was throwing the plastic pot in the well to fetch out the water ... I know she wouldnt have been successful in doing that...but she was trying.

Teaching her swimming was fun. Initially she was very scared of water. She used to shriek in water. But slowly she started coming in water with me beside her, holding her. Once I held her in the beginning, and left her after sometime. She gulped some water and I shouted 'Look Priya is swimming ... Everybody clap' ... and everybody started clapping ... And that was the turning point for Priya... Yes she learnt swimming with those sounds of clapping. I dont know what confidence those claps gave her ... but after that she swam alone without any help. In the night while sitting around campfire when she was asked what did she like about the trip, she told 'The way Kautuk Uncle taught me swimming'... Man I was speeechless. She came to me after sometime and touchng my hand said ‘Thank You Uncle’ with an incessant shy smile. She touched every nook and corner of my heart. I still remember the elation when after topping my school examinations my dad told me ‘Son I am proud of you.’ Priya’s compliment suddenly surpassed that.

Now while I write this mail thinking about Raja , Dilip and priya … there memories suddenly fills me with grief. An envelope of concern grips me. What are these kids doing now. How are they managing all by themselves. Why has been God so cruel. They are too small to be left all alone in this world.

It is becoming tougher and tougher for me to digest my own realisations.

Bigger kids had their own lessons to teach me.

Rohit ... 13 years old ... was the body of negativity in the beginning. None of the games he liked , none of the activities he adored ... making new friends was a burden to him. You introduce any new thing to him and be ready to listen the constant reply 'Kya Uncle ... Is-se kya hoga'. He was the guy not knowing Kannada or Tamil , So I had to be always beside him to explain him the rules in Hindi. His fights with Manjunath and Kumar became the talk of the trip. He was so hard to please.

But over the time I realised ... he found a friend in me. He told me about his home in Vrindavan... when his parents died he ran away to Calcutta... served in a shop for 2 years where he was constantly beaten ... and finally he ran from there too... and now he was living in Bosco where he learns Tailoring.

He enjoyed all the water sports and hated the trek. He was the first one to put wood in the campfire at night.

Though he opened very slowly... but definitly he did.
Now when I think why he opened to me I realise he wanted to be treated as a macho and I did that from the third day. If I wouldn’t have done that, he would have been in his shell for the whole trip. By the end of the trip he was laughing and cracking jokes with other kids.

He taught me the most imp lesson of the trip: If I need to help a kid … I need to understand and be sensitive to his/her needs.

Shubhashini... the 16 year old damsel...was the mother figure for all the girls.... her twinkling eyes and ever smiling face was a source of inspiration to all the kids around.
She spoke less and I always found her in pensive state of mind thinking about something.
Once we were discussing about our families and she told me that she doesnt like any body in her family. I was very surprised to know that. When I came to know about the pains she has gone though in her family I understood both her detachment from her family and her pensive looks.

It is still tough for me to take in how can she with so much pain inside , is able to smile , is able to take care of smaller kids.

And now comes the most amazing kid I had ever met... 14 years old .... toughest of all the kids.
With his Dada like appearence and talks he was easily taken as the macho in our group. He was the first one to do the darest tasks. He was always ahead in the trek , climbed the mountains first , jumped from the tree top in the water.
When we lost the key for one of our rooms he was relied on to break the lock. That was him. He felt competitive in everything. As a very normal teen he always wanted his coracle to reach the shore first.
I always felt like he was not scared of anything. He became a great companion soon. He told me about his family in Mysore..about his village ...where they used to grow paddy and rice.
I never saw him fighting. He only used to laugh voraciously when he saw others fight. And his laugh used to give me a shiver.

All was well until the last day when at the Shimoga railway station he found a blade. I dont know whether in fun or due to some bad memories he struck two other trip members with the blade on the backside of their neck.

Man I was petrified. I felt disgusted and repelled by him.

Kritika took him apart and had a talk with him. What came out was shocking. He used to work at the Mumbai Railway Station in a gang. The gang used to loot people after cutting their neck by a blade. I realised the action he did is not his fault ... he has been through all this. He has spent an unprotected childhood.

I realized that all so called “bad” behaviour has a long history to it. Instead of victimizing the kid or running away from the scence we should see what we can do about it so that another kid doesn’t do the same. Is not bringing guys like him to the trip the solution ? No !! No way. Well who knows we have such kids all around us. How can we judge that? I felt that the best I can do is follow up with him and know more about what that small child had gone through. Afterall, It is for guys like him Dream-A-Dream is working. Just the silent acknowledgement to his story brought a pleasant surprise to me yesterday morning – Guess what ?
He called me yesterday morning... And I went to meet him ... And ‘BINGO’ ... he told me how to pickpoctet others in a bus :) And yes believe me I loved hearing him.


Other 11 kids Santosh , Kirti , Prema , Manjunath , Kumar , Dinesh , Suresh , Anand , Vimala , Vishala and Sukanya .. all have their own unforgetable stories which are burned on my mind forever.


The whole trip was full of realisations. Here I try to summarise them.

1. I am really really blessed to have a protected , safe and learning-filled childhood. And We should make every possible effort to provide these children the same.

2. The most imp thing these kids need is love and someone to hear them. They have lot and lot to tell. Its us who have to give them our ears. The activites we do with children definitely instill a lot of confidence in them and gives them exposure.... but with this they also need friends , role models, people to whom they can speak out their heart. They need somebody to confide in.

Imagine if everyone of us makes it a point to meet just one child every week or 10 days – What enormous difference will it make to that child in specific and to our society in general.

3. We shouldn’t forget being Child-focus in all our activities. That means instead of volunteers making sure that an activity is completed by all the children... each volunteer should see that a particular child has done N number of activities. Until a volunteer follows a particular child in each activity , listens to him/her , befriend him/her... helping the child in a long term will be a far cry

Last , Honnemardu was one of the best thing happened to me. In the beginning of the mail I mentioned that I was scared. Now too I am scared thinking of all the things I would have missed if I hadnt gone to Honnemardu. The realisations I felt, wonderful time I spent, great friends I made are something I am going to cherish my whole life.

I am sure in everybody’s life there are incidents which can be termed as the turning point in one’s life. Honnemardu can definitely be such an incident.