As a little child, I remember going to Sishugram almost every month with my mother, and sometimes also with my father. There were many children in Sishugram then, 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 to 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, to walk around the hill along the circular concrete track. There was a road going all around that hill then (alas no longer – the encroachers have eaten up that road from a certain point on) and it was not very difficult to walk around it; what was more difficult was climbing to the top of the hill from where one had a wonderful view, the boys told me. But there were dense forests of sal trees all around and tigers with cubs had been sighted in our hills several times. We always got lovely pithas to eat and hand-embroidered hankerchiefs with crocheted lace edges as gifts sometimes. For me, those outings were 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.
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 did very well, under the regular and constant
care of Nupurdi and Madhuri Sahasrabuddhe; they really kept a tight check on
the all-round care of the girls – food, studies, sports, art, music, etc. Many
student volunteers from IIT Guwahati would 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 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 and I believe that
if it were not for the amazing mothers that we have always have had the good
fortune of finding, the help of a few dedicated IIT Guwahati faculty and volunteers
who continued to come and help in whatever way they could and the support of a
few local caring residents of North Guwahati, such as Mr. Pradip Bhuyan of
Faculty High School (who always sends the entire amount of rice needed every
month) and Sourav Chowdhury and Ramen
Thakuria (who send dal every month), and a few from IIT Guwahati (who send milk
and paneer every week), I am not sure our girls would have survived…
In early
2022, Ajoy Dutta, told me about the dire condition Sishugram was in. My friends
in IIT Guwahati had informed me that someone had offered to sell Sishugram,
lock, stock and barrel, to IIT Guwahati, because IIT was looking to buy land in
adjacent areas for their new projects. That sent alarm bells ringing – how
could anyone sell Sishugram? It was the property of the Sishugram Trust.
Further enquiry proved that some unscrupulous individuals, pretending to be
owners of Sishugram, had approached the then DC for permission to sell all the
Sishugram land together with the girls 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 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, 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.
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.
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 exists
since 1975. 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 decided to divide the work into three bigger lots,
the first part is 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. The second part is to do with
regularisation of our land records where despite our best efforts and 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, but we cannot start as long as the land issue is clarified and
adequate funds acquired. [This is more wishful thinking than a real wish, but I
wish we would find someone who knows how to get things to move in government
offices, who could help us to get someone to respond to our requests and
queries. None of the people who are involved so far with Sishugram seem to be
good at this. Years have gone by without things getting anywhere. And we don’t
know how to break the jinx.]
Soon after
we took charge, we tried to revive the broken links with IIT Guwahati, and
although that has resulted in the signing of a fresh MoU in February 2023,
nothing much has moved in that matter. 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 it so far. 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 Kumar, and others, besides Dr. Sidananda
Sharma. Individual IIT faculty have also sponsored the further education and
training of Sishugram girls after they attain the age of 18 and are therefore
no longer eligible for support from Sishugram.
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 sends 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.
One big
problem, perhaps the greatest problem that our mothers and staff face in
Sishugram is the problem of 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
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.
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 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 the 0-6 years category. These
might all sound very good on paper, but without adequate funds and the
necessary land regularisation documents we cannot make any headway in this
matter.
But we
didn’t want to just sit and wait and do nothing, so as a start 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. 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.
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.
Just keeping
the girls there, 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. It frustrates me very much when I hear that the best thing most of our
girls aspire for in life is to find a young man to run away with the day they
turn 18. 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, especially in North
Guwahati.
Many of our
past residents are doing well today, some have gone on to pursue higher
studies, some have undergone training in hospitality 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 even today 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…
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, 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, a lot better? Our
lovely girls deserve that, and much more…
No comments:
Post a Comment