Shishur Sevay

To make something happen in Kolkata, you have to look for cracks in the wall, work quickly, and get out before the crack closes.  I’m not talking about the usual corruption, bribes, money under the table.  Those are paths, not cracks, and each has its price and conditions.  The cracks are more about what is not expected, feats of perceived impossibility.  It’s how we got the kids.  We found a crack, and got them before this route was closed again.  But most of the time we are hitting the wall.  When I took eight children by ambulance to the Child Welfare Committee and said they needed care, we were told there are no facilities available, take them back.  We found places for three that day; the others went back.  It was a wall, with no shame.  Walls have no shame.

The following are pictures taken over the past ten years here in Kolkata, where time stands still and the walls get thicker.

Infected scabies infestation of child in a licensed home 2004

Infected scabies of the hand of a different child in a different licensed home 2012

Time stands still.  Conditions at the first home above were reported to the Department of Social Welfare, Department of Education, and the Human Rights Commission as girls there were being severely abused, and were not attending school.  Everything was documented.

In the case of the first picture, I was sponsoring this child at the “orphanage” as it was called.  I was asked to sponsor her as her mother was severely mentally ill and in and out of the hospital.  The grandmother had been taking care of her but found it hard.  What a delightful little girl she was.  I paid Rs. 1200 a month, roughly $25.  When I saw her hand I INSISTED a doctor be called.  The doctor came.  The little girl called him Uncle.  I learned she was actually the child of his servant and he wanted the child out-of-the-way.  The doctor owns a nursing home, a private school, and is a known expert in his field.  I said to him, “So you are a wealthy doctor and I, the foreign lady is supporting the child of your servant?”  He grinned and said yes.  No shame, that’s what I find over and over, no shame.

2006 I visited an adoption orphanage run by people who knew people I knew, and we “stopped by.”  I had already been told that the children were kept tied to their cribs, so I was curious as to whether we would be invited in.  We were invited in, and asked to sit for a while.  I figured they had gone to untie the kids.  But no…

Baby tied to crib, straining to look too.  Sometimes she rocked so hard I worried the crib would go over.

Three point restraint, plus around her waist. Her crib is too small for her to stretch out which I learned when I tried to examine her liver. She was Hepatitis B+ and considered non-adoptable.

And when these children are adopted, and they act strange, no one will know what they have been through, how they have lived, what they have missed.

This home’s license had expired and had not been renewed.  I showed these pictures and others to several government officials.  The home received its license and was scolded for letting me take pictures.  There is no shame.

I tried to buy these children, and I think came close to success.  We were negotiating…. For a long time I kept their pictures with me, kept two spaces for them.  I heard several different stories about their fate, so all I can tell is that I was not being told the truth, because not all the different stories could have been true.

Our children arrived at Shishur Sevay in February 2007 from a government home, with infected scabies, malaria, and bleeding gums.   There were no records of immunizations and none were given during their time in government care.  We immunized them at Shishur Sevay.  I had trouble getting them immunized for polio because most of the girls were over five years.  The doctor said, “Over five even if they get polio it will be mild.”  The government scheme only goes to five years.  I had it done privately.

It’s easy to be a critic, harder to find solutions.  When we started Shishur Sevay we needed a way to contain and protect our little ones — and so I had two “play pens” built.  That’s really the best way to describe them.  And I thought, “This is easy.  Why didn’t they do that instead of tying the children?”  It’s a mindset.  The children were inventory.  It didn’t matter if they were tied up.  In fact, several officials were impressed with the weight of the children.  “Necessary but not sufficient”

Why do I write this when “everyone knows?”  I write because I have hope; I always have hope.  And I write because I cannot be silent about what I see.  I also write to show my credentials for what I am doing here, not the past achievements of my life before India, but the sweat equity I have put into looking for solutions for the unwanted children.  I’ve been at this since 2000.  I’ve been up against that wall over and over, and sometimes I’ve found cracks, more often I’ve not, but each attempt has been a lesson.  I’ve learned to lose battles and come back a different way, a different strategy.  I like to think of myself as a good loser.

I started Shishur Sevay with a fantasy of showing what could be done and then shaming the government into doing something.  But I think the government is more like that wealthy doctor whose servant’s child I supported.  There is no shame.

I know there are others also trying so I write to reach out to them, to find them.  Maybe they will have ideas, and maybe they will be able to do things to make it better for the children. Maybe we will just all weep together at Kolkata’s wall of resistance, or better yet we will all go hunting for the cracks, and putting in wedges to keep them open, and celebrating each time we are successful.

Hello?