Khirki kholo

Khirki kholo:-
Started 5th May 2008

Coca-cola bottle caps, shoelaces, empty cigarette boxes, gutka packets, match-sticks, straw, pebbles, etc..when assembled in the right order and viewed by eyes that look beyond their obvious function, can become a car, a plane, a dinosaur, the sun, and a multitude of objects/toys. Given a chance, the unconditioned imagination of children and the innate need to “play” makes them geniuses at inventing toys. Initiated in collaboration with Tulsi Ram, this project finds its premise in the children’s intrinsic need for “play” and “invention”.

After observing the children of the neighborhood, make toys from waste, we thought of providing simple red clay to them, to make toys for themselves. These toys will be baked once in two weeks and given back to the children.
It is integral to the project to be located centrally, accessible to everyone. This time we chose to extend the geography of our project a little and moved to Khirki Village. My relationship with the village has mostly been with the elders. They gather in the evenings to play cards under a tree at the extreme end of the local village park. They were all open to the idea of letting us use the park for our project. One elderly man offered us his terrace to store the clay toys, one offered the pump house to store our equipment, one allowed us to use water from his house. It was a pleasant change from the usual nonchalance I face in Khirki Extension.
The local park (Khirki Extension), nandan van, is under the surveillance of the Saini daughter-in-laws, they lease it out for weddings and forbid trespassing, as a result the children of the slum dwellers are left with no place to “play”. After much pleading, convincing, begging, chasing we were not allowed to use this park for our project. The occupancy in khirki extension is of recent migrant labor, living in tiny cubicles leased out by the kaushik’s. On the other hand the Khirki Village houses migrant Chauhan (Rajput) families. These families have lived in the village for several years, dwelling in the locality long before Khirki Extension came into existence. As of now Khirki Extension comprises of poor labour community and essentially two powerful families, while the village comprises of largely middle-class working populace.
The economic/cultural diversities of these locations could be the possible reason for the difference in the perception/acceptance of our presence/project. I don’t know what it is that makes the Khirki Village hospitality so warm and the resilience in Khirki Extension insurmountable, but I hoping to find out soon.

Five days a week for three month, every evening we gather in the Khirki Village Park and make toys. Till now we have had a super turnout of about 40 children per day, and unlike the Extension, where the underprivileged are ostracized, everyone is free to access the local park here.
The energy is infectious, everyone participates, with skill, encouragement, infrastructure, and mostly with enthusiasm.
The ladies of the village, who come in the evenings to the park for their daily walk, often stop-by, to observe/comment/ discuss, and chat. They are beginning to notice how the quality of work produced by the educated and the uneducated children differs. The unconditioned observation of the underprivileged children makes them very sensitive in their formal representation. I was trilled to find more and more women agreeing to how important it is to be “creative” in one’s approach towards everything in life. And they all agree that the Indian education system leaves no room for dreaming and creating.
One evening a young 14 year old boy (Dhruv) struggling with clay told me “when I was young, I was an artist, but I am not anymore”. I was amused at his reflection on “his childhood” and annoyed at what the education system does to the young minds.
To our advantage this is also the summer vacation at almost all Schools. Tulsi and I get inspired everyday with the incredible work the children are making.

16th may 2008
Aastha Chauhan