© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Kavadi Bearer in Trance, Batu Caves, Selangor, MALAYSIA

Hindus, young and old partake in the yearly event of Thaipusam that typically falls in January or February to fulfill their vows. This is done in many forms of sacrifices depending on the gravity of the devotee’s illness or wishes; from carrying elaborate kavadi (mini chariot) or impale themselves with skewers and hooks to simple rituals such as paal kudam (milk offerings) carried in a kumbha (vessel) over the head. It is believed that those who perform the  paal kudam will have to repeat this act of penance for three consecutive years before receiving their wishes from Lord Subramaniam. Others however make the offering of milk purely as a symbolism of cleansing their mind and soul.

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Women and children dressed in yellow saffron clothing typically performs the paal kudam as children are not allowed to perform penance that requires body piercing. As they age, usually as a teenager, they will be allowed to impale their cheeks with the vel (skewer / lance) or carry simple wooden kavadi.

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Upon reaching the temple – typically on a hill – devotees offer the pot of milk to the presiding priest to be poured over the statue of Lord Muruga.

Similar to kavadi bearers, devotees that offers pot of milk will have to prepare their body, mind and soul with strict religious rituals for days leading up to Thaipusam.

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Not a day goes by in Bali without a festival of some kind. With at least 6 temples in each village and one in each district, coupled with ceremonies to commemorate various stages of one’s life cycle, the full moons of April and October, and lastly the ‘high’ holy days of Galungan, the statement must be right.

Temple festivals are held on the anniversary of the temple’s consecrated date. And by ‘anniversary’ the Balinese is referring it to an annual event, held on a new or full moon or every 210 days based on the wuku system – a complex calculation of overlapping days of confluence, with some days being more ‘powerful’ than others!

The Odalan – a temple ceremony – usually last for three days. However, for the ‘larger’ ones which occurs every 5,10, 30 or 100 years, the Odalan can last for 11 days or longer. During the Odalan, the deities that rule over the temple are honoured by the Balinese through the means of offerings, vocal sing-song like recitation, dance and gamelan music. Deities are believed to be invited from their abode on Mount Agung to partake in these activities.

The temple is dressed up by wrapping colourful and golden fabric around it and images of deities are taken to the local holy spring for cleansing and purification by the temple’s Pemangku (or Priest) who is assisted by committees formed for such events.

Believers make a beeline towards the temple in the late afternoon, dressed in their best traditional clothes. Women would often be spotted in identical long sleeved lace kebaya, batik sarongs and a ceremonial silk sash tied around the waist with offerings such as fruits and flowers being piled up high above their heads. The men on the other hand would form the gamelan troupe, strumming and drumming their way through the streets behind the women towards the temple.

Being a social event that starts late at night and runs well into the morning, children, youths and adult alike seize this opportunity to mingle, catch up on the latest village news and be entertained by performances once the offerings to both the gods and demons are completed.

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640 million children do not have adequate shelter

500 million children have no access to sanitation

400 million children do not have access to safe water

300 million children lack access to information

270 million children have no access to health care services

140 million people have never been to school

90 million children are severely food deprived

extract from UNICEF Report “State of the World’s Children 2005″

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The estimates vary but one often cited figure of number of children living independently in the streets totals between 100 million and 150 million worldwide*. India is home to 400 million children, the largest number in any country in the world. Not surprisingly, it has the has the world’s largest population of children living in poverty** and extreme hardship.

Over 18 million Indian children life, work, play, sleep, dream on the streets and sidewalks of Indian cities  …

and the numbers are growing with more than 50 children escaping intolerable circumstances at home to begin new lives on their own on the streets. Most vulnerable and exposed to exploitation and prejudice, these children work long hours during the day and at night, forming gangs in replacement of  a formal ‘family unit’ to protect themselves.

Children who run away from their families often make their homes in railway stations, settling down where they first arrive. They brave heat waves, monsoon rains and harsh winters on their own without protection; even if they once owned umbrellas, raincoats and quilts, they would have no place to keep them  or would lose them within 20 minutes of arriving at the station through to police brutality or those of the railway authority.

‘On the New Delhi railway station,

have you seen the children who sift

through waste, do drugs, polish shoes

and who knows what else?

Have you seen all this?

If you have seen them,

have you ever given any thought

to who they are, to their future,

that they are children too,

they have dreams too.

But will those dreams ever come true?

Or is it on the New Delhi railway station

that their dreams will shatter?

Why does this happen to them?

If you have never thought about this,

please think now.

Please save their future

from being destroyed.’

Shekhar, 14 years – excerpt from ‘If I Were Rain’, Youthreach

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* According to a report from the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom-based consortium of related NGOs:

Estimating numbers of ‘street children’ is fraught with difficulties. In 1989, UNICEF estimated 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. 14 years later UNICEF reported: ‘The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million’ (UNICEF, 2002: 37).

And even more recently: ‘The exact number of street children is impossible to quantify, but the figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions across the world. It is likely that the numbers are increasing’ (UNICEF, 2005: 40-41).

The 100 million figure is still commonly cited, but has no basis in fact (see Ennew and Milne, 1989; Hecht, 1998; Green, 1998). Similarly, it is debatable whether numbers of street children are growing globally or whether it is the awareness of street children within societies which has grown.

** The Government of India cites that a person living below the poverty earns less than Rs. 10 per day, or Rs. 296 per month. Furthermore, the government calculates that Rs. 10 will buy food equivalent to 2200 calories, which is medically enough to prevent death.

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Just like prostitution, begging is the world’s oldest profession with its own code of conducts and specialisation* involving all walks of life. However, unlike adults, only 9 out of 10 (homeless / street) children resorts to panhandling as a source of income.

Children who take to panhandling are usually victims of organised begging rackets, led by gang leaders who often present themselves as ‘benefactors’ and ‘protectors’ of homeless / street children that comprise of the poor, runaways and disabled.

For others, girls in particular, bonded beggary is seen as the last, but better, choice to avoid threats of being made a prostitute or one to be served before any pedophile. Nonetheless, ‘surrendering’ themselves to gang leaders as bonded beggars is no guarantee that their faith would not take a turn for the worse and that their fear in most cases materialises.

Because the child beggars business is extremely lucrative for the gangs, and where enforcements by authorities are weak, thousands of children are forced into it with many being mutilated annually, through amputation of ‘infected’ limbs and by gorging out eye balls by unscrupulous and corrupt physicians who works hand in glove with the gang leaders.

Visibly deformed children are highly prized by the perpetrators as they easily invoke pity and sympathy, thus becoming the most prolific and profitable beggars. Young girls that are too young for the flesh business, are often handed babies or toddlers who, like themselves were either kidnapped, lured or bought from very poor parents under false pretense, hope and promise of providing the child with a better life. Hungry, tortured and often subjected to the harsh elements these babies and toddlers will cry inconsolably, thus able to garner pity.

Whilst begging occurs everywhere – even in developed and rich nations – beggars in the urban areas are subjected to more anti-social elements compared to their counterpart in the rural area. In the latter’s case, people are more willing to give to beggars to earn punya (divine credits).

Furthermore, child beggars in rural areas are often not part of an exploitative syndicate but have taken to the streets and panhandling in their effort to contribute financially to the family’s coffers, thereby receiving support, love and basic amenities from the family unit.

Although the earning capacity of child beggars is much higher than the ones in the rural areas, child beggars in the urban areas do not receive a single penny; their ‘keepers’ or ‘owners’ reap the benefits.

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* ‘The Begging Profession’, a translated article written by K.L Kamat (original title Bhikshatane was published in ‘Malliage’ monthly) provides an interesting insight on begging as a profession.

read it HERE

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Zang Dhok Palro Phodong Monastery – Kalimpong, INDIA

He kicked at the pebbles and chased a cat along the way, like any young boy would do, creating a brief moment of uneasiness for me. But the moment he arrived at the monastery, he suddenly turned sullen – quiet, distant and serious.

Traditionally, the eldest son of a Tibetan family would stay on with the family and the second male child will be sent to the monastery. These children generally fell into three categories: pious believers, children of poor serfs* who entered the monastery to make a living and those sent to temples to meet a quota.

Life in the monastery is difficult with many rules to follow. There is a regular pattern. Apprentices rises at 5:30 a.m. in the summer and 6 a.m. in the winter, amid the sounds of mantra chanting. Breakfast is zanba, a traditional dish made of barley flour, washed down by ghee tea. After lunch, there’s a two-hour rest period. Afternoon study starts at 3:30 p.m., when they learn politics, laws and the religion, culture and history of Tibet.

Although it might sound dull to many young men and children, these apprentices says that their life is not all that different from that of their peers. Watching TV, listening to pop music, playing games are part and parcel of their routine.

* Temples had quotas for the serfs, and those who joined for this reason were called zunzhas. Among the ranks of lamas, generally 70 percent were from impoverished families.

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Manali, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA

Despite the success of a few world class schools such as the Indian Institute of Technology, India’s education system is in a dismal state overall. Spending just 3.5% of its gross domestic product on education, of its 1 million schools, most are state-run and reported to be sub-standards.

Set against this backdrop, tens of thousands of private school have sprung up across India in recent decades. Once preserved for the elite, private schools in India have undergone rapid transformation and growth to satisfy the educational aspiration of middle-class. This trend it appears has begun to extend to villages in the rural areas, and poor families have increasingly expressed willingness to pay at least a small percentage of their income to bolster the educational prospect of their children.

Despite these efforts to provide for a better and far reaching education system, one fact remains: of the 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, about 40% drops out by the age of 10 (UNESCO 2006). The root causes for these dropouts are attributed largely to poverty, family problems or lack of awareness among parents on the importance of literacy, let alone education.

Acknowledging this, some commendable localised ‘solutions’ have surfaced with the emergence of NGO-linked and individual funded private schools that hands out scholarships and highly subsidised fees.

Manali Model School is one of such schools ran by Raju ji – a physically handicapped man, who after spending 5 years with various grass root and national level NGOs championing literacy programmes (‘Mission Illiterate’) with villagers and the elderly, decided to take on personal bank loans (at various intervals) to build a school for ‘slow learners’ with the aim of providing inclusive education that does not exclude children on the basis of caste, creed, financial status, academic performance, or physical disability.

Twelve years on, the Manali Model School is a 3-storey structure – with room for expansion – that provides elementary, primary and secondary schooling between 9:30am to 3:00pm, in addition to night and computer classes for dropouts and adults in the evenings. Staffed by 10 full time teachers, Raju ji and his wife are not just actively involved in formal classroom education and the daily operations of Manali Model School, but finds the time to knock on the doors of pockets of villages in the Himalayan foothills and visits the tents of the nomadic Rajasthani community with the aim of convincing parents on the importance of education and its role in improving the lives of their children and future generations.

Although Raju ji is well aware that these students are unlikely to afford even subsidised fees, uniforms and allocate 5-1/2 hours a day, he is unperturbed and soilders on with his ‘Mission Illiterate’ dream.

“Some pay. Some don’t. It’s ok. If they come 10 to 15 hours a week, I am happy. Education is not about learning algebras or memorizing history books, it’s about character building and understanding the fundamental skills you will use in daily life. This is my hope for them. My dream for these children and their families.”

Raju ji

Having survived the strife his ‘Mission Illiterate’ dream had created with his late father, outcast by his village, near bankruptcy and continuous debts, Raju ji is far from giving up the Manali Model School, his 10 staff and approximately 130 students he has when school reopens next month.

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For those who would like to volunteer and learn more about Raju ji and the Manali Model School, please contact:

Hemraj (Raju) Thakur, c/o Manali Model School, Bhajogi, Manali, Kullu 175131, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA | rajumanali12@gmail.com | +919 816812410

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Click HERE for FULL slideshow / multimedia

The Spastic Children’s Association of Selangor and Federal Territory (SCAS & FT), Malaysia, was established in February, 1960 in a garage of the Red Cross to address the shortfall in the education system that does not cater to children suffering from cerebral palsy (CP). In 1962, the SCAS & FT formally established itself and built a center when it obtained a piece of land and a grant from the former Mayor of Selangor.

Enrollment of children with CP has since increased from seven to approximately three hundred students to date and they are provided free transport, education and various training and rehabilitation treatment such as physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and hydrotherapy. Apart from providing the main education and rehabilitation treatments, the SCAS & FT also carries out interesting and beneficial extracurricular activities such as sports, music sessions, gardening, needlework and swimming.

The SCAS & FT accepts children in their centre from as young as one year old to nurture and mould them into self-reliant individuals. Generally, those with less severe CP will start daycare therapy as an outpatient treatment and, if progress is made, they can then enroll in the early intervention program. Older children will be enrolled in the School Section and adult students are employed in the Sheltered Workshops.

Being a self-reliant organization that strives to help every parent who has difficulties providing care to CP children, the SCAS & FT’s efforts have been funded by a handful of private companies and individuals, many of whom have benefited from the SCAS & FT’s charitable services.

My involvement with SCAS & FT started six years ago when my nephew was diagnosed with severe CP as a result of birth negligence. Though he will never progress from the outpatient daycare therapy session, the SCAS & FT have never once denied him treatment and administers the same therapies and dedication levels as that of CP children with hope of rehabilitation. More importantly, it is a place that has provided my family with emotional support by fostering a caring and open environment amongst all students, families and volunteers.

Set against picturesque backdrops of high mountain passes, the gushing Beas River, lush apple orchards, bucolic alpine meadows and glacier, in Himachal Pradesh lies secluded hamlets infamous for its world class charas (Hindi for hashish).

Grown wild, traditionally the locals use the hemp fibre for ropes and to weave traditional shoes, with seeds being kept aside for its medicinal properties. However, in the 70s, hippies from the West flocked this pristine valley in search of a cosmic high.

With a perfect micro climate – sun-drenched ridges and healthy soil, Kullu Valley’s cannabis plants grow in abundance and is reputedly the cream of the crop; with ‘Malana Cream’ ranking the best in the International Cannabis Cup event held annually in Amsterdam. Other brands include AK-47, Russian Mist and Space Ball.

Raking in approximately Rs 900 crore per annum, naturally the locals cashed in on the trade, alongside a nexus of expats, local peddlers and international smugglers. With the emergence of a mini-Colombia sort of cartel in the Kullu Valley, comes a host of problems that has spurred  aggressive crackdowns by the Indian police and the Narcotics Control Bureau under the supervision of the Inspector General of Police.

However, local and international media attention in particular seems to concentrate only on news of missing foreign nationals in the Kullu Valley such as Israeli-American backpacker Amichai Shtainmetz, British Ian Mogford, Israeli Nadav Mintzer, and Guy Daudi, Canadian Ardavan Taherzadeh, Rotterdam Maarten de Brujin, Russian Alexei Ivanoc, Australian Burfitt Jacqueline Louise, and the perhaps the most notoriously covered is Anna Bartlett a 25-year old British girl  whose body was washed up in a river. The fact is almost 50,000 foreign tourists visit the valley every year, with Israelis making the majority of them. As per official records, 57 foreigners have died in the region due to accidents and ‘accidents’, attributed to trekking and drug overdose. Unofficial records suggests that a relatively high percentage of missing foreigners are ‘missing’ or ‘dead’ … having chosen to settle in the valley and join the burgeoning illegal trade that is controlled mostly by the Israelis and Italians.

Nothing worthy is being mentioned about the government’s stance on the issue, its  action plans to curb cultivation of cannabis, stricter law enforcement on cultivators and smugglers, and/or preventive measures and assistance to locals who are ‘forced’ into the cartels’ trap. Whilst there are countless of NGOs (both locally and internationally funded) and state-run institutions around the Kullu Valley that assist and educates children who are orphans, handicapped and lately the Rajasthani nomadic community, nothing is done for the children who lives in the hashish hamlets. They not only remain in an intricate web of an international cartel ring of smugglers, but are increasingly driven further into places that are physically inaccessible and by all imagination uninhabited by any sizable population of humans to avoid detection by enforcement agencies.

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For my personal account of this photo story, read HERE {warning: mere rantings}

]]> http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/hashish-children-of-kullu/feed/ 1 http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2009/12/chaam-behind-the-scenes/ http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2009/12/chaam-behind-the-scenes/#comments Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:18:42 +0000 ganpenelope http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/?p=938 © Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Enchey Monastery – Sikkim, INDIA

According to the Encyclopedia of Dance:

“Tibetan dance rituals are presented with the objective of attaining a special goal: for example to eradicate negative forces and engender positive circumstances—long life, wealth, or inner transformation. All forms of Tibetan ritual dance are considered to be vehicles of instantaneous enlightenment, since any spectator might spontaneously comprehend the otherwise secret meaning of the ritual. The dances are aural and visual offerings to a deity, enticing him or her to attend the dance and bless all present, as the dancers offer the movements of their bodies, their melodic speech (mantras or songs) and the devotional thought of their minds.”

and that:

“Tibetan ritual dance is mandalic in form. The dancers whirl in a pattern that circles the deity, who is at the center of the dance ground, until they become united as the deity-and-his-retinue in their pure land….Ritual dancers move in a clockwise manner, creating a boundary around the sacred space, protecting it from harmful influence, and thereby allowing the ritual of transformation to take place. The mandala space is sanctified by the circling of all the dancers, who empower both themselves and the space they enclose by revolving around the center—in the same direction as they perceive the planets revolving around the sun.”

The Kagyed Mahakala Chaam (dance of the Great Protector) is no different in its intent and form; being performed by a group of monks over a stretch of a few days from sun up to sun down across a few Kagyupa monasteries simultaneously in honour of the Mahakala. Besides its rigorous and demanding nature of the trance like dance, preparation for the Kagyed Mahakala Chaam is equally rigorous, starting seven days and night before the actual performance with reading of the Buddhism scriptures Ya Yig and the Chaam Yig; both of which being 400 pages each!

As the chaam is often about the expulsion of negative influences and exorcisms of spirits, all monks prepare themselves on the day of the performance via religious rituals that seeks blessings; ranging from countless of prostrations, burning of incenses, recitations of mantras and circling of the monastery with periodic hitting of the cymbals and blowing of horns – a sight to behold on its own.

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