CHILDREN UNPLUGGED

Power shortages in New Delhi are frequent. Pull the plug and no one would pay much attention or stop what they are doing. The street and working children of Delhi are as embedded in the city’s character as power outages. Their childhoods are flickering lights bulbs that burn out too fast.

Some people were born to be power cords. According to Wikipedia, "power cords connect an electrical appliance to the distribution circuits of an electrical power source." The power cord is capable of transforming something that, on its own, is disabled. The power cord enables the TV to play our shows, the washing machine to clean our clothes, the fridge to store our food at the right temperature. It provides value. Most of us take the power cord for granted despite its important function in our daily lives. We only pay attention to the power switch when it doesn’t light up the room against nightfall.

This summer I'm going to be a volunteer for Pratham and Butterflies in New Delhi, India's capital of more than 14 million people. The company I work for is sending me as a symbol of its corporate consciousness. Pratham, India's largest NGO (non-governmental organization), and Butterflies are paying attention to millions of children who are unplugged from the potential to realize any goal beyond that of every day survival on the streets. These organizations are wired installations of opportunity set up across shanty towns and railway stations, sweat shops and red light districts.

I'm on my way to the airport, about to visit India for the first time. This could be a recipe for disaster. I am a neat freak. I can’t stand big crowds. Still, I’m going to the second largest populated country in the world with more than 1.2 billion people. I'm about to connect with a mosaic of ethnic groups, customs and languages unfamiliar to my senses. Why am I willingly throwing myself into this melting pot of streets crowded with speeding auto-rickshaws and fast food eating cows, Bollywood production and henna colored arms, the Taj Mahal and monsoon rain?

Perhaps I should be spending a four weeks long vacation in the Mediterranean with friends. The decision to challenge stereotypes of India comes at a time when mom could ask when I'm planning on delivering grand kids. I raise my cup of chai to her. She never got a decent raise, she never received any praise after all those years when budget cuts didn’t mean less work, but underneath memories of night shifts and working holidays, I unfold the knot of pity most people expect me to pack for India.

Before arthritis settled in mom's hands, they would cup my fingers as I followed her to work when I was a little girl. Aligned with memories of her washing and feeding and medicating and tucking into bed, oblivious to my embarrassed discomfort with the drool, the smell and the cramp attacks, is how effortless she'd listen to what was inarticulate emotions to my ear. If her role as a mental health worker was a dance, she'd be a ballerina that gracefully could swirl and twirl any blurry speech into verbal pirouettes. To her, their voices have always been indistinguishable from yours and mine.

Most people feel sorry for children born into lack, into don't have, into no way and ache over indiscernible faces of deprived childhoods. Underneath the uniform of impoverished opportunities, Pratham and Butterflies enable children to become more than their past that we pity them for. These empowerment cords offer alternatives through education, health care and budget management for the rag pickers and the glue sniffers, for the girls and boys who can’t use enough words to sum up all of their losses even if they learned the dictionary. They are plugging into the electrical outlet of each child’s ability to develop goals beyond survival that we call living. I'll make sure to pack ballet shoes before I zip up the suitcase. The Mediterranean can wait.