THE "ONE" NATION : Banking on the little ones

• Anuj, a 14-year-old orphan and street urchin, is an unlikely banker. He promotes the Bal Vikas Bank, or Child Development Bank, an exceptional financial institution run by street children for street children in New Delhi. Last year, he was the manager. This first-of-its-kind bank encourages working street children to save money, and gradually haul themselves off the streets.
• Most voluntary organizations give children a facility to save money. �If they overspend, we have to diplomatically point it out to them,� [Ansari says]. �Ask too many questions and they give their money to someone else.�
• Having their own bank was the best option the children could have in the streets. Street children in Delhi brainstormed the idea and established rules for Bal Vikas bank, including eligibility for borrowing. They proposed barring children who are taking or selling drugs, gamblers, pickpockets or bullies. They dropped the idea when they realized that none of them would qualify for a loan.
• Each borrower has to have another street child as guarantor and undertake to continue saving in the bank. Panicker says Bal Vikas will be opening businesses in the other Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

THE "ONE" NATION : No Cameras, Just Plights, All Action

• Twelve-year-old Pushpa is �reporting live� from a desert school camp in Rajasthan, trying to adjust her Sony Handycam on the tripod and, without a disconnect, her dupatta too. She�s making a 10-minute film on the scars child marriages leave on a girl�s psyche. She should know: like her peers in this school, Pushpa too was married�about four years ago, at the tender age of eight.
• Chandra conducts 20-day workshops for children to introduce them to all aspects of filmmaking�from encouraging them to brainstorm on issues they think is important to training them in developing effective scripts backed by sound research and teaching them the technical skills involved in filmmaking. "The last bit is a very small part of the workshops. The important thing is to find issues which affect them and then take action.."
• The crew of Addicted Innocence, a film on tobacco addiction among children, started an anti-gutkha signature campaign in Madhya Pradesh�s Sehore district, forcing authorities to ban gutkha sale near schools. Today, the crew takes pride in the fact that they have helped make all schools and colleges of the district gutkha-free.
• K. Divya and her group made a film on joginis, the �wives� of the village gods, and by extension, wives of the entire village. They chose Savitri as their �lead�: she was only 12 when she was married off to the community. Savitri is now 22, one of the thousands of joginis in Andhra Pradesh.

LIFE : The Indian On the Train

• The first sign of the "desi" is that tendency to occupy that little bit of space that is available, which the average "resident" would pass over. The distance the desi maintains from other people around, and the space he allows others is directly proportional to the time he's spent in the US.


• The second sign, if he's dressed in casuals, is the shoes. The Indian, if not always, will wear white, no, screaming white, sneakers. No other colour will do. It's like they're not sneakers, if they're not white.


• The third is the book he reads while whiling his time on the train. In the NJ/NY area, the average desi will either pull out a copy of the latest book on investment banking, option pricing, black-scholes model and the whole hoo-lah, or else he'll be updating his programming skills. So expect a book in C# as the likely contender.


• Obviously, if he's not reading anything, he'll be checking out all the people in the compartment. Specially, the women. He stares so hard, he could drill a hole. Obviously, in that one stare he can check out the entire anatomy... a skill perfected by practice.


• If you're travelling on the weekend, you're bound to see entire groups of desi families, mothers and mother-in-laws dressed in traditional sarees, fathers and father-in-laws dressed in two piece suits (no, they're not bhaiyyas) or a simple half-sleeve shirt with trousers and sandals, the son/son-in-law in jeans and the abovementioned sneakers and the daughter/daughter-in-law in jeans and jajjy sandals all set to see the Big Apple, and a darshan of the usual sites... Wall Street, the WTC site, the Statue of Liberty on the "free" ferry ride and of course, followed by a visit to Jackson Heights (the desi heartland in the big, bad, city).


• As winter approaches, the jackets are a dead giveaway. The desi geek would be dressed in the, inevitable, leather jacket, imported en masse from the motherland. The desi investment banker would wear a checked/tweed-like suit and would still be reading the same book, he was in summer.


• If you ever see a desi on the train, talking to a "resident", the roles assumed by the participants would be as follows - the resident is the speaker, the desi is the "speakee", always deferentially listening to every pearl of wisdom that drops from the resident's mouth.


• Before leaving, the surest sign of the desi is the quintessential Honda Accord, which is the official sponsor of the desi in firangland, which will be driven by the wife, to drop the hubby off for the day, following which she shall get the housework done at home and wait eagerly for the chap's return in the evening.

HUMOR : Justice Served

PERSONAL : Monday Blues