Sishugram of my memory and of my dreams

Sishugram, a Girls Home that I help to run in North Guwahati is celebrating its Golden Jubilee this year. Established in 1975, Sishugram has been part of my life right from its inception. In this article, meant for publication in the Golden Jubilee Souvenir, I chart out the broad outlines of my association with it.

Early Memories: As a rather plump little child, I remember going to Sishugram almost every month with my mother, and sometimes also with my father. In those days, there were many children in Sishugram, perhaps close to fifty, both boys and girls; after we got there my mother would get very busy talking to the mothers and the staff while I was left to my own devices. I would roam about, join the kids for evening prayer in the little Poojaghar one step higher up the hill, or if I could find a willing companion, walk around the hill along the circular track. There used to be a concrete road going all around that hill then, easy enough to walk on, though sadly, that is not possible any longer -- today the road ends abruptly at a certain point, a clear victim of the mindless hunger of encroachers. Climbing to the top of the hill was more difficult, but the boys told me that the view from up there was wonderful. The dense forests of sal trees all around were both inviting and dangerous, especially since tigers with cubs had been sighted in our hills several times. Every visit also meant treats -- lovely pithas to eat, and sometimes hand-embroidered hankerchiefs with crocheted lace borders as gifts. For me, those outings were  very special and  something I always looked forward to.

Fast forward to the late eighties and nineties. By then among the million things my mother seemed to do, she was also in charge of the Red Cross activities in the state. The Red Cross had set up another orphanage in Lankeswar, Guwahati, beyond the Forest School. At some point, all the Sishugram boys were moved to that orphanage to make Sishugram an exclusively Girls Home. One by one, the founding trustees of Sishugram passed on and my mother was left as the last surviving founding trustee. Since my mother was also getting on in years herself and Sishugram located in faraway North Guwahati, she entrusted the day-to-day management of Sishugram to the Red Cross Society.

Association with IIT Guwahati: I got associated very closely with Sishugram once again in the late nighties, when I joined the newly established IIT Guwahati in North Guwahati, right next to Sishugram. Since our faculty quarters were not yet ready, I would also stay overnight in Sishugram occasionally, in that initial period. The Ladies Club of IIT Guwahati, led by Nupurdi, wife of our Founding Director Professor D. N. Buragohain, got involved very soon and took over the local management of Sishugram. That was a time when Sishugram was thriving, under the regular and loving care of Nupurdi and Madhuri Sahasrabuddhe; they kept a close watch on every aspect of the girls' lives – food, studies, sports, art, and music -- making sure nothing was neglected. Dr. Amarendra Das and his wife Kaveri were also active members of the team. Many student volunteers from IIT Guwahati would also come to spend time with the Sishugram girls, to help them not just with their studies but also with other matters. I still remember the great success we had organizing a Sponsored Run for Sishugram at IIT Guwahati in which many IIT students participated and we managed to raise a tidy sum for Sishugram. Those were great and happy times!

But the association with IIT Guwahati somehow did not last. The Ladies Club stopped their involvement in Sishugram after Nupurdi and Madhuri left sometime in the first few years of this century. I went off to Germany. My mother, who was into her seventies by then, somehow kept Sishugram going with the help of the Red Cross. And with the help of her trusted and lifelong associates like Padmashri Ajoy Dutta, who is the present Chairman of the Trust Board, and Mrs. Minoti Chaudhury, who became her successor in many organisations afterwards. Sishugram continued to exist, but only barely.

After my mother's demise: After my mother passed in 2017, the Red Cross continued to keep it going, but at a very basic level. Matters hit rock bottom during the Covid period when our girls really had a very difficult time. But nobody cared very much. I am not sure that our girls would have survived if it were not for the amazing mothers who fed the girls using their own savings, the help of a few dedicated IIT Guwahati faculty and volunteers who continued to come and help in whatever way they could, and the caring support of a few local residents of North Guwahati, such as Mr. Pradip Bhuyan of Faculty High School (who always sends the entire amount of rice needed every month), Sourav Chowdhury and Ramen Thakuria (who send dal every month), and a few from IIT Guwahati (who send milk and paneer every week).

In early 2022, Ajoy (Dutta) mama told me about the dire condition Sishugram was in. Around the same time, my friends in IIT Guwahati also informed me that the IIT administration was looking to buy land in adjacent areas for their new projects and that someone had offered to sell Sishugram -- lock, stock and barrel -- to IIT Guwahati! That sent alarm bells ringing – how could anyone sell Sishugram? It was the property of the Sishugram Trust. Further enquiry proved that what I had heard was true, that some unscrupulous individuals, pretending to be owners of Sishugram, had approached the then DC for permission to sell Sishugram off to IIT Guwahati!

I had deliberately kept away from Sishugram after moving to Germany. I knew that it was not doing well but since I was not in a position to help, I just kept out of it. When I mother died, on principle I refused to have anything to do with her public engagements and associations. I had enough to do taking care of her personal legacy. But when I heard that Sishugram was on the verge of being sold by people pretending to own the place, one could not just let it go. Under the leadership of Ajoy Dutta and a few dedicated Red Cross staff, the Sishugram Trust Board was reconstituted and along with some old members such as Shri Ajoy Dutta and finance expert Mr. R.S. Joshi, was included Prof. Dhiren Buragohain, former IIT Guwahati Director, who had returned to live permanently in North Guwahati, Professor Rabin Goswami, who had recently retired from Cotton College,  and businessman and philanthropist Mr. Ruben Chowdhury, who was Minoti Chaudhury’s son and who like me, had known about Sishugram all his life through his mother.

Taking responsibility: I took on the post of Managing Trustee on condition that Ajoy Dutta Mama remained the Chairman and Ruben agreed to be the Treasurer of the Trust Board. At the ground level, the Local Managing Committee was reconstituted with Nupurdi, the former President of the IITG Ladies Club, Dr. Sidananda Sharma who had been associated with Sishugram right from the day he joined IIT Guwahati as a student, Partho Pratim Barkakati, a local resident of North Guwahati who has always actively helped my mother in many of her activities, and Dr. Maloshi Chowdhury, who teaches in North Guwahati college, among the members. And we advertised and appointed a qualified In-Charge to run the place.

Small successes: That was more than three years ago. In these three years we have tried to put the house in order and see what we could do to improve things. The corpus of the Trust Board is not substantial. The fact that the Trust does not have a physical office in the city and cannot afford to keep any dedicated staff has been a big problem. We were having to start almost from zero although Sishugram has existed since 1975.  We started by doing what we could. We now have an IT account with 80G exemption and are entitled to receive CSR grants. We also now have a logo and motto and all the girls and our staff have bank accounts. We divided the work we had into three bigger parts, the first part was to do with regularization of our finances and IT records which we have more or less succeeded in doing with the help of Ruben’s office and staff, and Joshiji’s expert guidance. 

Land: Regularization and Masterplan: The second area of work  was to do with regularisation of our land records where despite our best efforts and despite having the support and good will of many sincere and well-meaning government officials, we have not managed to make much headway. Delays in obtaining government responses and lack of requisite funds are the main impediments. We have drawn up a very ambitious Masterplan (details elsewhere) for creating not just a better Girls’ Home but also creating many other facilities for the common social good, like a Working Girls Hostel, a section for livelihood training and income generation, and a residential facility for senior citizens,  but we cannot start as long as the land issue is not clarified and adequate funds acquired. We have recently expanded our Trust Board with the inclusion of five new trustees. I can only hope and pray that they bring in the missing impetus that will turn things around and take Sishugram to the next level of well-being and development. [This is more wishful thinking than a real wish, but I wish we could enlist the services of someone who knows how to get things to move in government offices, who could help us to get responses to our requests and queries. None of the people who are involved so far with Sishugram seem to be any good at this. We also have a very competent lawyer who is very well regarded in the DC Court. Yet, years have gone by with very little to show. And we don’t know how to break the jinx.]

The wellbeing of our girls: The third and most important area of focus is the care and welfare of the girls living in Sishugram with the help of our mothers, our very dedicated In-charge and our very active SLMC, the Sishugram Local Managing Committee. With their help, I think we can say with some satisfaction that the girls are getting better all round care now. Although the monthly support that the Trust Board gives the SLMC does not even cover staff salaries, our SLMC has been managing so far with the help of individual donations and making the best use of the resources available. Our very committed In-charge Mridusmita Barkakati has finally managed to get the Niti Ayog/ Darpan registration for Sishugram. After having run Sishugram for fifty years without any government support, we hope this registration will bring about a vital change in that matter.

The problem of 'temporary' girls: One big problem, perhaps the greatest problem that our mothers and staff face in Sishugram is the problem of having to handle and accommodate 'temporary girls'! As Sishugram is a recognized Child Care Institute (CCI), we are obliged to house girls needing temporary shelter, when they are brought to us at any point of the day or night by the Police or by Childline. These are girls who have run away or have been kidnapped and have been rescued, or who have been forcibly taken away from their homes where they were perhaps victims of abuse themselves or have been at least witness to abuse. These girls are completely traumatized and desperate when they arrive and are ready to kill themselves or others or to run away. In such situations it is a huge challenge for our meagre resident staff not only to handle the new arrivals, but to also shield the permanent girls living there so that they do not get upset or desperate themselves.

New temporary girls are brought to Sishugram very often, there are at least 2-3 temporary girls at any given point of time in Sishugram. Of course they don’t stay long and are taken away to be produced at the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) as soon as possible and then either restored to the families or sent elsewhere, but each of these arrivals badly disrupt the normal life of the permanent residents in Sishugram, to say the least. And in the absence of any trained resident therapist, our two mothers have to handle the new arrivals as well as keep the permanent girls in control. And we get paid absolutely nothing from the state for doing this very difficult job for them. We have tried to make our case several times with the CWC and also with the DCPO, but it seems, as long as we wish to retain our recognition as a CCI, we are bound to do this for them.  They do not seem to care that we do not have the facilities nor the manpower necessary to handle sudden arrivals of traumatized teenage girls. Something needs to change here, urgently and quickly. This cannot go on.

Other problems and challenges: And there are many other problems as well. Since the houses in which the girls live in presently are more than 40 years old, we have tried to repair them and to somehow carry on. But this cannot go on too much longer. We have to do something very soon to build new accommodation for the girls. The other big problem is security – since we have a substantial amount of land, it will need a minor fortune to build walls along the entire boundary. We do not have proper walls even around the area where the home is situated. This creates a big security problem, made worse by the fact that it is a home for girls. Not only do we need to replace the existing infrastructure, but we also need to create extra infrastructure to create an After Care Home (as part of a Working Girld Hostel) to house our above 18 girls, at least till they find other places to live. There has also been a rising demand to also establish an Adoption Centre at Sishugram for children in the 0-6 years category.  Then there is the issue of livelihood training for our girls (and for others living closeby). We need to have facilities where our girls can learn some craft or profession (such as tailoring, carpentry, cooking), while they are with us, so that they can earn their own living and lead independent lives later. 

Something done -- a Multi purpose Hall: We had to begin somewhere. We didn’t want to just sit and wait and do nothing. So we have built a multi-purpose Hall in Sishugram in place of one of the crumbling and unused houses, where the girls can assemble for their studies and other activities. Most of the funds required for this construction was raised through individual donations and I would like to thank each and every donor who contributed to that effort. Our lawyer, Simanta Deka, donated the ceiling fans and  our young architect Ranjan Kalita, who we have engaged for the job, refused to accept his dues and donated that entire amount to Sishugram.  The Hall was inaugurated on 1 Nov 2023 by the then District Commissioner, Ms. Keerthi Jalli. Having this Hall for their use has meant a very big improvement in the all-round performance of the girls, be it studies, or otherwise. The Hall also functions has a place for hosting small events and meetings.

Wishlist: But that is not enough. We need to provide better facilities for the girls, not just the living conditions, but also in other matters. Let me make a wish list, of a few things we desperately want to do, but do not have the means to make happen. (1) We urgently need the services of a therapist who can handle the temporary girls as and when they arrive and also take care of the mental wellbeing of our girls, who often arrive at our home traumatized and often after being a witness if not a victim of some form of physical violence and mental torture. This is the topmost priority but we have not found anyone who is willing to do it for us on a regular basis at rates that we can afford. (2) It would also be great if we could have a dedicated vehicle for Sishugram. Right now the girls have to walk to school and this can be an impossible problem during the rainy season. Also since Sishugram is not located on some main road, it is hard to find conveyance if a child is ill and needs to go to a hospital. I hope this problem at least will be solved soon and we can find some donor, like the SBI, who will gift a vehicle to us. (3) It would also be great if we had some regular donors/sponsors to Sishugram who contribute regularly every month. We have a few already who we acknowledge with grateful thanks but we need a few more. Even as little as 500 rupees per month would be very welcome. Every little bit adds up. And that would ease the pressure and help towards making things a little better for our girls, for example, getting a music teacher or an art teacher to come to teach our girls once a week or to pay for tuitions in Maths and English for our older girls. One could carry on with this wish list… but enough of that. I suppose the drift is clear.

Calling out to IIT Guwahati again: Soon after we took charge in 2022, we tried to revive the broken links with IIT Guwahati, and although that resulted in the signing of a fresh MoU in February 2023, nothing has moved beyond that. The present Director of IIT Guwahati in fact even spoke of ‘adopting’ IIT Guwahati when we met him in January 2025 but again, nothing more has come out of that idea so far. There was a joint meeting at IIT Guwahati on the 7th March, 2025 in which we met the newly formed 'Sishugram Development Committee' and tried to request their help.They promised to make possible some regular counselling for our girls, arrange for regular security patrols, and to change the electrical wiring in the houses immediately. They also promised to talk to SBI to secure a vehicle for Sishugram. But except for some crucial electrical repair work, things have not moved on any of the other fronts till date. Despite this lack of progress formally, some faculty, students and staff of IIT Guwahati have been helping Sishugram in their individual capacities for many years. Special mention must be made of Dr. K. Srinivasan, Durgesh, Karan and others, besides Dr. Sidananda Sharma. Individual IIT faculty have also sponsored the further education and training of Sishugram girls after they attained the age of 18 and were therefore no longer eligible for support from Sishugram. Just last month, on Independence Day, there was a sense of deja vu (reminiscent of the time we had organised a sponsored walk) when IIT students, encouraged by Ms. Kanka Sharma,  staged a street play themed on Sishugram at two prominent locations in North Guwahati. I really hope that was not just a mere flash in the pan!

Final thoughts: Just keeping the girls at Sishugram, sending them to school and making sure they are eating well and are clean and happy is not enough, we somehow need to invest more time and individual attention on each and every one of them besides teaching them values that will help them survive in this difficult and ruthless world that awaits them. We need to train the girls in something that will help them to be independent and earn their living, after they leave. We need to give them vocational training. But there are not many options for that, especially in North Guwahati. So we might have to start a few programmes ourselves.

Quite a few of our past residents are doing well today, some have gone on to pursue higher studies, some have undergone training in hospitality, tailoring and other sectors and have jobs now. But they are in a minority. Most of our girls think the easiest way to a good life after Sishugram is to elope with a young man the day they turn 18. And as a consequence, often we are having to come to the rescue of our former residents who had made that mistake and are now left with nothing but a battered body and another little mouth to feed.

Considering everything, it is easy to despair, and to feel that we are standing with our backs to the wall. That there is nothing we can do to change anything, and the situation is getting no better, despite our best efforts. But then at some other times I have the feeling that we must be doing something right, for despite all our shortcomings, our girls are happy and full of life, they don’t sulk and hide but come running when we visit; many are among the best students in their respective classes; moreover it is heartwarming to see that during Pooja and Bihu and other festival times, Sishugram is filled with joy and laughter and is teeming with life when many of our former residents come back ‘home’ from their places of work or study. Sishugram is the only home they know. And then it is clear to me that giving up is not an option. We have to keep doing what we can, because if tomorrow we close down Sishugram, these girls will lose their ‘home’ one more time. And that cannot be allowed to happen…

Golden Jubilee: Fifty years! Fifty years is a long time. Finally let me ask the obvious question? Do we have anything to celebrate at all on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Sishugram? Are we celebrating just the fact that we still exist? Yes, perhaps that is reason enough for a celebration. But should we have not achieved a little more than that in fifty years of existence? We have very good and well-intentioned people as Trustees and in the Local Managing Committee. Why then are we not managing to do any better? I can only speak for myself, but I can see that things are not moving at all despite my best efforts. Ever since I took over as Managing Trustee, I have invested a lot of time and energy in Sishugram. But have not been able to do very much. So much so that I am beginning to believe that we have been doing it all wrong, all along. Let me be brutally honest -- we have been stuck all this while because we have not made any headway with any of the three ingredients we need to get out of the rut.  The three ingredients are:  first we need governmental clearance and support in getting the land matters regularised; second we need funds to execute the various different projects we have laid out in the Masterplan, and third we need a team of interested persons who are younger and motivated, and who can commit their time and energy, and who know how to do these things, who are willing to join us to turn things around in Sishugram. Only then will we have something to really celebrate. 

A Dream: Let me end with a dream, my mother’s dream, her dream for the future of Sishugram. Among her papers that I found after her death were some hand-drawn images, rough drawings of her plans for the future development of Sishugram. On the hilly parts of our land, she had written ‘sal tree forests’ and ‘medicinal plants garden’; on some of the flat parts there seems to be agriculture of some sort. In one of those drawings, among other things, is to be seen a huge courtyard, at one end of which was a large building labelled ‘children’s home’; at the other end were a series of smaller houses labelled ‘senior citizens residential facility’; and in the shade under the trees on benches sat some elderly men and women with books in their hands reading or explaining something to the children sitting with them.  Some children were writing something with the help of the seniors… perhaps doing their homework. At another end of the courtyard was a kind of volleyball court where some seniors were playing ball with some children. And at another corner, sat a group of women knitting, beside them a few young girls also sat knitting… And although it was long before the age of emojis my mother had drawn a huge smiling face on the middle of the field, in the portion that was empty in her drawing…

So my mother dreamt not only of a happy and flourishing Girls Home at Sishugram but also of combining it with housing for senior citizens so that the two groups could support and help each other and give one another the attention they seek and miss. Along with many other things, I have also inherited that dream from my mother. That dream has become mine now… if I had my way, I would start with working towards that dream today… but there are many problems, many of them almost insurmountable. We have a very long way to go… perhaps we will never arrive…but if Sishugram has survived fifty years on so little, can we not at least try to ensure that the story of the next fifty years will be better, perhaps even a lot better? Our lovely girls deserve that, and much more…