We need to look at child poverty as a crisis: Geeta Dharmarajan

Tamasha! has given me a huge high every time—the kind of responses we got from villages, and children from different Hindi-speaking parts of our country. I liked the way in which the Katha Lab School has grown from one slum cluster to others as well.

The lows have mainly come from the lack of money. As a nonprofit, we have always been very ethical and frugal. I have sometimes felt that since we work so much with children in areas of poverty, we ourselves should not be extravagant in our expenditures, nor do we ask for more. So, not having enough money for growth has been one of the major lows.

The global climate change series has been extremely interesting to do. It really allowed me to learn what will plague our children in the years to come and how we need to prepare them for it. Another nice book that’s coming up is called The Wizard of Khizr, illustrated by an Iranian, which is bound to be fabulous.

Children have always been reading and children always have not been reading. I think they are reading in their own ways. The reason why children are not reading is, of course, due to the usual culprits—television, Whatsapp, apps and mobile phones—for those who can afford it. For children who can’t afford it, it’s still the lack of libraries, still the fact that the only book they would see is a textbook—these come in the way of reading.

Geeta Dharmarajan

The solution is more libraries for children, more books that are relevant for children. We don’t treat children as if they can speak, which is a major problem. We just give children books that will stop them from thinking for themselves, asking questions, debating ideas and moving from that to action. Children are capable of doing all these things. So, we should make more books that are relevant to children and provide book-rich environments.

I don’t think they have any Indian role models. Role models have the black and white as well as the grey areas. The fact that today’s role models are fun doesn’t mean that we forget the black or grey areas they have. I’m talking about an ethical lifestyle that we all need to have. Hindi film stars do advertisements about eating more, drinking more and everything more. Our role models are coming up for more rather than sustainable.

Books have never been seen in our culture as very important—maybe because we were just moving from an oral to a written tradition when the tech revolution took over. The tech that has taken over is not available for most people in our country. Further, there is a disregard for the value of the book, specifically storybooks, in learning. The government puts a lot of money into textbooks. Children may learn for a test from a textbook, but they don’t learn lifelong values, skills or ethics from a textbook.

Katha started off with a big gender bias. We are very sexist in our own way because we only look at women! The pendulum has been swinging so long in this direction. With such comfort, we use “she” for a person when the gender is unknown.

In Katha, we believe that girls and women hold up 50 percent of the sky, so we need to have strong women protagonists, strong stories that portray girls as breaking stereotypes. So, we do have a lot of women illustrators, writers, poets. We don’t always look at who is writing so much as the value of the story itself. Many times, men are very feminist or humanist in the way they look at stories.

I think the answer lies in upward mobility, opportunity, choices, reading skills—the ability to not wake up at 2 am to fetch water for the family, to be able to get through eight hours of sleep so that one can go fresh to school in the morning, to have enough food in one’s belly so that one doesn’t have to keep thinking about their hunger.

As individuals living in urban India, it is incumbent on each one of us to say that we are going to do something about child poverty and equal quality for all children—a street child and one from a rich family should both get quality learning tools, stories, schools and teachers. Much of the early learning that has to happen can happen when each child teaches a child.

Since our country has 50 per cent of the 300 million in schools today not able to read at grade level, the other 50 per cent can help in the way of sharing, caring, learning and laughing together. If that can happen, we can be the first country to have equitable learning opportunities. ECTC (Each Child Teach a Child) is a very simple tool for getting over poverty.

Unless there is a political will and we, as citizens of this country, care, I don’t see any major, sustainable changes. That can only happen if we come together, which would be the next step Katha needs to take. We need to look at child poverty as a crisis. I’m sure people will come out in the millions and say that they will not tolerate child poverty. Katha should be in that advocacy, partnership area to leverage people’s interest and bring them together. If we continue living in the periphery, I don’t think change can happen.

I feel happy. I always feel like I’m 17 going on 71. I just love looking at an ant, at a leaf falling, the breeze in my hair. I’m loving spending time with my parents, who are both in their nineties and still treat me like a little baby.