Thursday 28 November 2013

28 November - A Pachmarhi Incident



Last Sunday/Monday I went with 6 others from Sambhavna on a 2-day trip to Pachmarhi (Monday was election day so a public holiday). On the Monday, as we tripped around the hills I had an ‘interesting’ incident happen. This is a story from a healing point of view, but just as it happened, with no attempt at interpretation.
At one point we went to a place where the British used to take Indians to execute & throw them off a high cliff in to the deep crevassed valley below. It was a walk along a path and then a dried river bed, in the rainy season there must be a high waterfall here. The victims would have their hands and feet tied and a hood placed over their head, and they would have known exactly what was about to happen to them.
It is a lot further down than it looks in this photo.
As I stood looking right over the drop, the energy of the place felt very ‘odd’ to me, I cannot explain it better than that, so I sat down to do Reiki healing for the place and what had happened and to the people who had died as well as those who did the killing. I think I could feel anger, fear, cruelty stirring around the atmosphere.
Most of the others were playing cards at this time.
I looked up in the middle of this and there was a single eagle directly above me, seeming to circle on the up-flows. I carried on with the healing but only a minute or two later looked up again & the eagle was nowhere to be seen.
After I stopped, I felt a bit quiet but as we all started to walk away I got a feeling of deep sadness welling inside me. Later as we drove away this feeling disappeared.


Here we are leaving the cliff edge. Tabish in the green leading, then Dr Jay in a white shirt with Harshit just visible behind him, Biju and in the rear and the red, Deven.

Wednesday 27 November 2013

24 November 2013 – There at Last



I’m a bit late with this blog. I was going to do it on the above date, had started even, but was whisked away with several guys on  a 2-day trip to Pachmarhi, an old hill station town.





The waiting area in Mumbai domestic terminal where I spent a happy hour or three.




 


Journey is as journey was and as I floated gently down through the clear blue sky to Bhopal airport I took a deep breath. For a small regional airport it has an amazingly modern looking terminal building. Once through though reality hits and I get a cab to take me the few kilometres into Bhopal centre. The cab dropped my by the Peoples’ Hospital on the Berasia Road (more of that later) and I made my way on foot through the streets I recognised slowly from my last trip. It all looks pretty much the same down these lanes at 07:30 in the morning.
Raj is on guard duty this morning and took me to the volunteer quarters where I met Devendra (Deven) and a pile on the bed that eventually turned into Harshit later that morning. We had an introductory chat, Deven and Harshit are both Indian and the first time I have come across Indian volunteers. Both have excellent English – fortunately!
Sathyu has arranged for me to occupy one of the guest rooms which at the moment is locked so I dump my things in the boys dorm and have a wander. Soon Deven and the guard unlock the room and I spent most of the morning rearranging it so there is a good floor space for my yoga practice. Nandkishore is still the cleaner on the first floor and we are pleased to meet, he instantly recognised me. Later he did a special clean on the bathroom. India is dry and naturally dusty so surfaces quickly acquire dust especially when unused, even for a mere day or two.
Over the next few days I was to meet many people still here and it is good to recognise and be recognised and welcomed. Many times I told what I have been doing in the intervening two years.
As I looked around my home for the next few months several things have changed. There is a new washing machine, a new water filter and a new gas hob. Last time my blog was being read by the spies of Dow Chemical, a company called Stratfor and in one of their reports they mentioned my comments about the (old) washing machine. So if you are reading this Stratfor, we have a new one with all the features of the old plus a neat fluff collector.



I started work on Saturday, having set up a table in the observation room where Shabnam works in the morning and Aziza in the afternoon. They are nurses and it is a busy room with injections, drips and oxygen being given so often it is bustling with people. It could be a source of new patients as They discuss with the nurse what I am doing and already two people have asked if I can help them. I send them to their doctor to get a referral before I can do that unless they are staff and one staff member started treatments yesterday. 

 My treatment area in the Observation room.

Saturday 16 November 2013

I’m Off (Nearly)



Well, here I am on the eve of my departure and just to make it fun London Transport has decided to close lots of tube lines tomorrow so the journey to Heathrow may be more difficult than the flight!
I have had an exciting day with friends and colleagues in the Professional Speaking Association in London but the way ‘home’ on the tube was somewhat like the game of sardines! ‘Home’ at the moment is in the London Stratford, not the Avon one, courtesy of my old friend Sanjay who has let me stay here after I left my lodging with Sandra. (Thanks for a year or so of house share, Sandra.)
I had an interesting time packing my belongings for store in Squab, just near Leamington. They have a box about 1.5 metres wide, 2 metres deep and maybe 2.5 metres tall and my boxes filled less than half. Two of my treatments tables have been lent to colleagues and one is with me here. The car, I have given to my neice. The tables I want back, the car I don’t. Apart from that I have just a few clothes with me here.
I am really lucky that on my return I can stay again here in London with Sanjay, or in Birmingham with my sister until I sort something more permanent – that’s ‘permanent’ in the Jarvie dictionary.
My visa came through last week after an epic struggle. Unwisely I had applied for the correct visa, an Employment visa, which is for voluntary work as well as paid work. But it just got too-oo-oo difficult so on a call to the High Commission from outside a café in the rain, I said I wouldn’t do any voluntary work, could I just have a Tourist visa. I had to swear in blood (I exaggerate, but only a little!) that I would not do any work. So if you plan to visit India, just go for a Tourist visa, it’s much simpler!
So, on Monday morning I will arrive in Bhopal. Sathyu is away that day at a court hearing so it could be an interesting time to arrive. Also they will be preparing for the 29th anniversary – on 2/3 December and I wonder what demonstrations or performances are planned this year. The locals in Bhopal always hold some sort of remembrance.
Do stay with me on this blog and remember that the kindle of my last visit is on Amazon, called “3 Months in Bhopal” at only £1.54 and all profit goes to the BMA. If you want a chat while I am there, my Skype name is “Spineworks”, Bhopal is 4½ hours ahead of the UK so don’t make it too late.
I will sign off now and write again next Sunday.

Monday 4 November 2013

The Women’s Walk and the Creation of Chingari


The Chingari Rehabilitation Centre in Bhopal is where I worked for my final three weeks the last time I visited, in 2011. When I went there I had not known about Chingari and, in fact, it was another volunteer, Melanie*, who first told me about it and my first visit there was with her one afternoon after Biju and I had finished working.


When we arrived all the children had left but most of the therapists were still there. I chatted with several, including Sanjay, the head physiotherapist, and the conversation ended with me promising to return the following Saturday to explain and demonstrate Spineworks.
 


I also met Tarun, the ever smiling big man who is the administrator. It was his suggestion that I spend some time here, rather than popping in on odd days. It would give the children time to get used to me and my being there. I should probably point out that there are few white faces in this part of Bhopal. Although there are tourist attractions in Bhopal, they are few compared with other Indian cities so few people make it part of their tour itinerary. Many will arrive there because it is a major railway junction in the centre of India and a crossing for north-south and east-west routes. Further, most of the tourist interest is in the southern part of the city, the north being the old industrial heartland and hectares of slum and semi-slum dwellings.

But let’s take a big step back to that fateful day in 1984.




Rashida Bee (left) and Champa Devi Shukla today, with
Dani one of the volunteers who were there with me in 2011.
Rashida Bee was a young (18 years old), veiled Muslim wife. She and her family were all exposed to the effects of the gas as well as the water and as a result her husband could not support the family so she came out from the veil and involved herself with other local women to find work
 
Champa Devi Shukla was born in 1952, married at 13 and in 1972 moved with her husband’s job to Bhopal. Again, the whole family was affected and none of the men could work, so, like Rashida, she too came out to find work.
Soon both women found themselves involved with the campaign for survivors as well as with many other women who now had to find work to support devastated families.
Even people who had worked previously found they could no longer do the heavy manual work that was common, especially for women. About 100 women took up an offer of training, funded by the Delhi government but even after the training there were no jobs forthcoming. Rashida and Chmapa-devi asked, ‘what was the point of the training if there were no jobs?’ Tired of being pushed around they lead pickets and demonstrations, learned about the legal minimum wage (which no-one had been paid) and petitioned the local government officers. Work came for some of the women in fits and starts but none of it worked for long.
So one day, everyone agrees, Rashida had the idea of walking to Delhi. No-one knew where it was, nor the way, let alone how far it was. (Note: it is about 750 kilometres.) Literally the next day, with no planning, in  late summer of 1989 the band of women and children, with a few men, gathered in the streets of Bhopal to start their walk north along the Berasia Road, (Note: made famous in the diary of my last visit!)
It took 33 days before they reached Delhi. Days of hardship and hunger. Days of welcome support and others when whole towns refused help and marched them on. Days when they had to tell people who thought they had received plenty of compensation and should not march of the true stories of corruption, bribes and no work. One day when a Hindu priest invited them all, Muslims too, to rest the night in his temple, despite a notice declaring, ‘No Muslims’. Long before, any difference between the walkers was forgotten as they shared everything they had. On another occasion they had to walk through a forest notorious for bandits, but news had gone before and the bandits said they would not harm them, even so, the police marched with them through the forest to make sure. The police inspector was in tears as he waved them on their way.
When they returned they continued their work, supporting women workers and campaigning for the survivors. This was the background that lead, in 2004, to the Goldman Environmental Award being presented to Rashida and Champe-devi. They used the award to create the Chingari Rehabilitation Centre which was incorporated as a charity in 2005 with an all-female Board of Trustees.
Chingari exists to support the families that have one or more disabled children as a result of the gas and water. It has created a database of children with special needs, probably the only such database in existence, over 300 children are listed with some 120 receiving treatments at the centre. Apart from running the centre, the trust also provides funding for hospital medical treatments and drugs as well as regular check-ups. As many of the parents are illiterate, the staff also help to get documents, complete forms and write letters for the families

My first day, before they got me doing all those treatments,
looking out from the physio room into the main hall
and a riot of children having fun.


My personal experience of the centre is of the daily flow of the school day, and it is a demonstration of good management. Rani, a diminutive woman, is the keystone in the arrangements. As the staff arrive, 5 mini-buses drive out into the surrounding bastis to pick up the children and parents. We all prepared for our day with a chai prepared by Rani and sometimes a samosa or similar that someone had picked up from a street stall on their way here. As each bus arrived, Rani would help unload and distribute the children to a physiotherapy or occupational therapy treatment, the special education or speech therapy rooms. She would co0rdinate the children through the morning. The buses would do a second run and more children and parents would arrive during the morning. By 12 to 1230 all the children would be in school, the drivers would have a break and registration would take place.
Registration is lead by the special education teacher who then leads a song or call-response, as you can see in this short video clip:





Since early this year there has also been a lunch provided but that wasn’t happening when I was there.

The afternoon reversed the procedure with those early arrivals being taken home first followed in slow succession by the second run later in the afternoon. While this is happening the later arrivals are being directed and sometimes carried to their various therapies and lessons by Rani. The second afternoon run took all these children home and then it was quiet and the staff made notes before going home.

On Saturday, the centre is closed for the children and some of the staff go out into the bastis to look for disabled children who are not registered. In the general society there is a stigma attached to giving birth to a disabled child and some mothers are hidden or will hide a new born themselves which increases the difficulty of making contact. Newly contacted babies and children can attend the  centre on Saturday for the registration process.

There is a wide range of disability in the childhood population. Cerebral Palsy is widespread and that, in itself, has a wide variation of effects and seriousness. Many children have club foot and many of the children with whom I worked had spastic muscle in their legs and arms. Some of the boys have Muscular Dystrophy, including two brothers with whom I worked. Then there are growth retardation, speech, hearing and sight disabilities, learning difficulties.

For my part on the physical therapy side, there was usually (including me) three of us doing treatments and one occupational therapist in the room next door. Each of us would be doing between 10 and 15 sessions every day – the sessions were short for the children, anything from 15 to 30 minutes though with one hyperactive little girl having her lying for 10 minutes was a real achievemen!

This is the physio room where you can see me working with one of the older boys and Sanjay in the rear. In between us is another young boy doing a passive exercise.
And here is the other physio, Kalpana (right) with a mother and child.



Chingari, I am sure, will continue from strength to strength, guided by its two mentors, Rashida and Chanpa-devi who attend on most days and managed by the ever present, ever smiling Tarun. The BMA also supports Chingari so any donations that you give via their website will also support the work of all the dedicated staff there.
Finally, of course, no child born after the disaster with disability caused by the gas or water has ever been offered or received compensation.
 ********

You can read more about the walk of the women at www.bhopalmarathon.org page 50 and also in the www.bhopal.net archive.
Chingari’s website is http://www.chingaritrustbhopal.com/
* Melanie now works for the BMA in the UK.