Bal Kutir

I never went to an orphanage, at least not with the sole purpose of interacting with the kids, until yesterday. My mother used to cringe at any suggestion of my doing so, because she somehow finds it downright upsetting. Even I was somehow convinced that I would be a little upset to meet some underprivileged kids. That, however was not the case. I've been part of some food donation campaigns, but the interaction with kids there is limited to distributing some basic food items, and those kids aren't really orphans. We mostly help out the nomadic labourers with their food supply. I am personally not convinced with this form of Social giving, because I feel it serves a very short term and narrow purpose, but that discussion I can leave for later.

Yesterday, about 7 of us from office went to 'Bal Kutir', an orphanage run by a nice old lady in her own house. We went with the intention of holding a small drawing contest for the kids, and using their drawings to decorate our floor this Diwali, and we did just that (Yea, no surprize). But I did come back with a very different view of these children. I did not feel any pity whatsoever. Maybe because they themselves were not reeling in self pity as I had imagined. They were just back from school when we got there, and so we had some amount of trouble getting them out, and getting them started. I was a little apprehensive at first, and I didn't know what to say. So we sat them down and distributed the coloring pencils and stuff, and asked them to make any drawing about Diwali. Some started with geometrical designs, and some with diyas, and most of the tiny tots started with a contorted version of whatever the person sitting next to them was drawing. It was fun watching them draw, and helping them out. I drew a diya for 'Golu', so that he could color it in, but he did not think very highly of my artistic talents and chose to politely turn his drawing sheet over and start afresh!

Another one of the few boys there initially drew a boy holding a pataka in his hand and trying to light it with a candle, but chose to erase it when I patronizingly told him that it wasn't the most prudent method to light crackers! (yeah yeah, I'm boring.)

The kids seemed mostly unperturbed by our presence, which was probably because they interact with hordes of people all the time with rising guilt of low CSR. But they seemed to be well behaved and intelligent lot, and it was a lot of fun interacting with them. I hope to go again soon and spend some time playing cricket with them. :)


PS. There was also a guy who traced out a duck on his sheet, and along with one of the more demented people from office, insisted that it was a "Murga", and so he claimed to have made the advertisement for "Murga Chaap Patakas". Weird the people in my office I tell you :p

Labels: Education, Food, Life, Society