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Brand new baby Radha

by Cindy Ryan (with Aarti Kalro) (photos by Aarti Kalro)

Maya’s howling, healthy, full-term baby girl, born in a cramped, low-ceilinged home the size of a small bathroom in North America arrived not in a hospital as we had hoped, but in her home with the help of neighbours. Prem, Suman and Nandini have a new sister named Radha. The news of Radha’s birth was given to us by Aarti Kalro who, along with Jaita Guha, has been helping Maya keep her appointments with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health. Dr. Rupal and her excellent caring team were responsible for giving Maya the much-needed advice to keep her healthy during her pregnancy and give hope to all of us that she would have a healthy child.

Just before I left Saki Naka, I helped Maya register at a municipal hospital with the thin shred of hope that she would manage to give birth there when the time came. While municipal hospitals are in need of scrubbing and staff with more time to give, giving birth in one is possibly cleaner and safer than giving birth in a slum home. A hospital birth ensures the baby will have paperwork, a leg up on the system of becoming a bonafide person in India.We can only speculate as to why Maya gave birth at home. Her husband may have been at work when Maya’s labour started and Maya may not have had time to make it to the hospital or she decided she wanted to give birth at home. Radha was born without benefit of doctors, nurses or bureaucracy, as well as being a girl, all a possible recipe for poverty in the mired caste system. What she does have is a loving mother, a father who seems to be excited by her birth and two sisters and a brother who have managed to live through malnutrition and stunted growth to become healthy, active, very smart children. Given a chance in India’s complex social system they could live a fruitful life. Maya is about 25 years old and is a strong, yet physically very tiny woman who is able to stand up for her children and herself and do what’s best in very difficult living conditions. Since Radha’s birth about  6 weeks ago, Maya’s family has chosen to move from Saki Naka to a different community in Mumbai where they will have some help from her husband Pramod’s relatives and a larger room to live in. For that we are all grateful. DWP will continue to assist Maya’s children and support the family with much help from Aarti and Jaita.

Below, in Aarti’s words, are her thoughts on Maya and her involvement with the family.

Maya. 

More than words I am overcome with emotion when I think of Maya.  
While many who don’t know her, might make the assumption that she is shy and a victim of her circumstances, I think differently.  
Maya has been a positive influence in my life. Rather than me giving her anything she has given me a lot. Maybe (it’s my hope) that we give each other strength. I know that Maya has become more brave now that she has DWP’s support. In return, she is an inspiration for me and a reminder that your circumstances do not dictate your happiness.  With her perennial smile, and her innocence, she lifts my spirits when I feel low. 

The last nine months have been exciting and also fraught with worry. Maya calmly left it to us, accepting help and suggestions with full faith. We all hoped at DWP that Mayas pregnancy would go smoothly and the baby be born in a hospital with a birth certificate. We tried. It was not to be so. The baby was born at home with the help of the neighbour . However the baby is healthy and that is most important.  She has an aura of calmness about her and beautiful curious wide eyes like her older sister Nandini. Will she be mischievous like Prem ? Or bubbly like Nandini ? Will she be blatantly truthful like Suman? I don’t know.. She will be loved without doubt.. By 5 wonderful people-her family-and then many more. While she may not grow up with the chances that a lot of us are fortunate to have, I know that she will grow up into a loving individual and have a vibrant life.I hope we can give her a chance to study and a chance to dream. 

Aarti was given the honour of naming the baby which required her to think passionately about what she hopes for this new life. Below is her reason for choosing the name Radha.

Radha was Lord Krishna’s advisor and friend. He was in love with her but she was married. However they are always depicted together, and some say she was even more important than Lord Krishna himself. She is also supposed to be the original goddess of Shakti ( power/energy ).

It is a beautiful name and just has a loving feeling , and softness to it…   Aarti.

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Written by Cindy Ryan

Maya is so tiny. Still under 80 pounds and she is six months pregnant with her fourth child. But there has been progress (She has gained almost 20 lbs in the last 7 weeks) and the sustained hope that with four women watching over her she will deliver a healthy child from a healthy body.

For a poor woman in Mumbai to deliver a baby in hospital and receive a modicum of care, she must register with a municipal hospital. This will ensure her baby has a record of birth, the first step in being counted. Maya, in her early twenties, and already a mother to three children, is one of millions of poor women, pregnant, malnourished and frail who must rely on inadequate maternity care at a municipal hospital or remain at home foregoing any prenatal care.

Maya’s home is a tiny cement box just off the lane way, near the bridge where the traffic flows day and night and the bad kids from the slum gather to lounge, spit, and pass time. Standing in her home I have to be mindful of the fan just above my head. Maya turned it off and giggled as she rummaged through the plastic bags hanging on nails, looking for her past medical records. Her husband, Pramod, sat slumped against the wall, sleepy from a night of work at a powder coating company. He made a comment in Hindi to Maya and her eyes glossed over with tears and her face became tight. Reluctantly, Maya left her home with me to go to a municipal hospital to register and get the first check-up for her pregnancy. Once in a rickshaw, Maya let the tears flow and I anxiously asked Indu, who was accompanying us, to ask what was upsetting her. Maya told Indu that her husband told her she was to return home within two hours or she should not come back. Hoping this was just a sleep-deprived man talking nonsense, we continued on our journey to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and took our place in a line-up outside in a cement courtyard to wait over an hour for a clerk to open a window to process maternity patients for one hour only. There were at least 80 women in front of us, and soon, over 100 women behind us.  Maya perched on a ledge wet with spongy green moss while Indu and I kept our place in the line. The women waited, tolerant and patient. The hems of their sari’s wafted in strong breezes, fluttering and falling with each gust of wind that suddenly came and went. There were burka-clad women chatting in tight groups and women sitting cross-legged on the ground continuously wrapping the end of their sari’s over their heads for shade.  A few husbands littered the crowd. I was envious for Maya that some of these women had husbands by their sides.  When the rain started, the chatter became more animated, and the wait became more frustrating.

Once inside the hospital, Maya was separated from Indu and me, and made her way upstairs to sit in rows of a few hundred pregnant women for her turn to be weighed, measured, have her blood tested, talk to a doctor, and then return downstairs for a tetanus shot and supplements which, in Maya’s case they were out of. This was a four hour process. Indu and I took turns sneaking up the stairway to peer in at the waiting women, trying to spot Maya in the crowd, trying to determine when it would be her turn. The public area of the hospital has two benches for hundreds of people coming and going, waiting and worrying. We eyed the benches, waiting for a turn to sit if only for a few minutes.

Municipal hospitals are for the poor and are run by the government. The services provided are barely adequate and anyone who could afford to go elsewhere would not enter this place. The interior of this hospital had moldy, smeared walls and large rooms with numerous beds and no privacy. Rusted iron tables sat beside sagging iron beds covered with dirty pink pieces of rubber laid over stained sheets. The staff seem burdened and sluggish. The cleaners mopped lazily over large swaths of floor, moving dirt around in concentric circles.

For the poor, the alternative to having their baby in a municipal hospital is to have a home birth. Maya, who is from Nepal, had her first daughter, Suman who is now six, in a field in a remote village where she lived.  Her second child, Prem, now four years old, came suddenly while Maya was in her home. Her third child, Nandini, was born in a hospital in Mumbai, just over a year ago. Maya and the many poor, pregnant women like her, need much more care than what a municipal hospital can provide. Thankfully, Mumbai has a Foundation for Mother and Child Health clinic (www.fmch-india.org) which provide mothers free information on nutrition, health care, hygiene, as well as necessary supplements and personal attention from Dr. Rupal Dalal and her team of social workers and nutritionists. When we first took Maya and her children to Dr. Rupal a few months ago, she weighed 70 pounds at four months pregnant. Suman and Nandini were malnourished and Prem had calcium deficiencies. Watching Dr. Rupal handle her caseload of women and children is inspiring. A pediatrician and a mother, Dr. Rupal is devoted and dedicated to their care. She requires the women to be pro-active with the health of their children and themselves and to visit the clinic on a regular basis. It is a struggle to keep these women, many of whom are illiterate and abused by husbands, to maintain the regimen Dr. Rupal and her team aim for, but the success stories, of which there are many, are worth the fight. Months ago, we took a family of six kids to Dr. Rupal, all of them malnourished, and they are now healthy, active and energetic.

Since our departure from Mumbai in August, we have enlisted the help of two wonderful women (Jaita Guhu and Aarti Kalro) who had volunteered with DWP in the Saki Naka community, to ensure that Maya and her family continue to get the care they need to become healthy. Jaita and Aarti have kept Maya and her children on task with supplements, hospital visits and visits to the Foundation for Mother and Child Health. This is no small favour. Maya can’t manage any of these trips on her own and her husband has so far not accompanied her, so Jaita and Aarti must take hours out of their day to ferry her back and forth through the thick of Mumbai traffic to ensure she gets to the clinic and the hospital. Because Maya can’t read, they must also help her to understand instructions for medication and supplements. Her health and the health of her children count on them.

Aarti and Jaita report that both Nandini and Prem are now healthy and Suman is progressing, but not quite there yet. Maya is now almost 90 pounds at 6 months pregnant, but still needs more nutrient rich food in her diet. Dr. Rupal gave Maya some food bars containing essential nutrients as well as some health bars for the children. She has instructed Maya to include eggs three times a week in all their diets. Aarti is suggesting that she take Maya to register at a municipal hospital much closer to the community which will make it easier to get to when the time comes for Maya to give birth.

With the expert care, and loving attention that Maya and her children are receiving from all of these selfless women, we are hopeful that she delivers a healthy baby while improving her own fragile health. The problem Maya and most poor women in India face is the lack of knowledge regarding basic nutrition and the lack of quantity and quality of food they can afford. One out of every three malnourished children in the world live in India. Many kids in the slum live on glucose based biscuits, sugary tea, watery dal and white rice. As Dr. Rupal has pointed out to me, malnourished kids have stunted growth, lower IQ’s, and higher rates of infectious diseases. Cramped living conditions, open sewers, and not boiling drinking water leaves them at risk for constant illnesses. The Foundation for Mother and Child Health (FMCH) is taking the necessary steps to educate those who come to their clinics. Kane and I met with Dottie Wagle, the Chairperson of the India Branch of FMCH. In our short meeting we understood how determined she is to continue this initiative in other areas in Mumbai, making this amazing, free service for the poor accessible to more communities throughout Mumbai.

We are hoping that Maya and her young family can be the example of what quality care, education and a community of caring women can do for the poor, the illiterate and the abused. Maya is becoming less shy and more capable and is already showing signs of a take-charge attitude to her children’s health-care. This is progress. We had a chance to talk to Maya, Suman and Prem on the phone while they were with Jaita a few days ago. Though the conversation is limited to the little Hindi we could understand, it was great to hear Suman’s raspy voice and Prem’s constant chatter. And sweet Maya was as happy to hear our voices as we were to hear hers.

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* Photographs were taken by DWP (Cindy and Kane Ryan). This was DWP’s first time shooting a wedding. 

(Interested in having DWP shoot your wedding or special event, contact dirtywallproject@gmail.com)

Life is Beautiful

Though rather short for an Indian celebration of marriage, (one day compared to the usual three or four days of feasting and celebrating), Sarah and Ashley were married with panache in the St. Vincent Pallotti Catholic Church in the Marol neighbourhood of Mumbai. Because Ashley now lives and works in Qatar and Sarah was back at her home in Canada, they relied on the creative energies of their Mumbai friends (Pradeep, Darshana, Supriya, Amit, Richa & Danny) and family who cobbled together a stylish and poignant event with only a few weeks notice. Along with Sarah’s mom, Rita Petrescu, who flew in from Canada and Ashley’s mom, Amelia Fernandes, from Mumbai, we danced, ate, and celebrated with exuberance for hours.

Dressed in a gold-patterned kurta, Ashley was the very handsome epitome of refined Indian elegance and beautiful Sarah perfectly blended the two cultures with her choice of a fitted, draped white dress, a halo of jasmine and a glittering maangtika. The ceremony was a traditional rite of marriage mass. Later the reception was led with the finesse of a game show host, by the Master of Ceremony. Francis, dressed in a very slick shiny suit that John Travolta’s Saturday Night Live character could only aspire to, kept everyone energized with theme dances and a fast-paced, action-packed evening in traditional Goan style. The reception hall was a bedazzled display of lights, garlands (a hand-made gift from the Girls Can Be women), fresh flowers and Canadian flag centrepieces. The highlight of the evening was Sarah and Ashley’s entrance to the reception. The MC had everyone stand in anticipation of the newlyweds arrival to the booming Star Wars theme music and throw confetti on them as they paraded the circle of guests. This was the kickstart to a wedding reception I will never forget. The wedding was broadcast live on UStream thanks to Ashley’s friend Pradeep and a laptop. Friends and family tuned in from around the world. Also not forgotten was Sarah and Ashley’s determination to include people from the Saki Naka pipeline slum where they met. Dressed in beautiful sarees, the GCB women and their children were excited to attend their first Catholic wedding. Ranjana and kindergarten teacher Usha and family made it to the reception, very excited to be part of this beautiful occasion. When the music stopped and the clean-up began and we all slowly dribbled out of the building, not really wanting the night to end, Ashley and Sarah had the caterers pack up the left-over food to distribute to pavement dwellers on their way to their honeymoon hotel. They also helped the GCB women by hiring them to decorate envelopes with a photo insert given out to everyone at the reception as a thank-you. The cake was brought to the slum community the next day and handed out in chunks and when the small pieces were gone, the plate was licked clean of any remaining icing and crumbs.  Their wedding linked two cultures and two thoughtful, generous people who value their families and their friends and who will live their lives with compassion for others.

Written in their own words. By Sarah and Ashley.

From Sarah:

It’s hard not to believe in fate when the universe nudges you along like a gale force wind. Last September, a long-planned sabbatical from my job as a reporter at the Times Colonist newspaper came upon me. All but one of my plans for the year fell through – and it was a loose-made plan. The Christmas previous, I met Cindy and Todd Ryan at a mutual friend’s party and spent most of the night talking with them about their son Kane’s charity work with the Dirty Wall Project in a Mumbai slum community. A few months later, Kane told me more over a few drinks on the Canoe Club patio and gave me an invite to visit. Not long after that, with fellowships denied and travel buddies bailed, I found myself alone on a plane to India with a year to kill. On that journey, I wrote in my journal wise words from a woman I met doing relief work in flood-ravaged Mozambique years before: Open your heart to know your heart’s desire.

Kane and his parents greeted me at the airport. I stepped into the cacophonous sauna of Bombay and felt strangely at home. I spent my first few days in the Saki Naka slum community playing with children, drinking chai in homes the size of my bathroom and following around the Ryans. On the third day, Dirty Wall and Janvi Trust held a Diwali party in the garden they’d transformed from a dump. This is where I met my future husband.

I spotted Ashley standing with Kane’s dad, Todd, in the garden. He stood out not only because he looked like an old school Bollywood star, think brown Cary Grant, but also because he appeared so fresh and clean in a pressed shirt and jeans. The rest of us were covered in dust and sweat and children. Ashley is a longtime friend of  Ashley Pereira who operates the Indian charity Janvi Trust. They grew up in the same building a few minutes away and their families attend the same nearby Catholic Church. He had also become quite close to the Ryans.

When Todd introduced Ashley and I we gave each other a smile with a future in it. Through writing, phone calls, visits and my eventual return to Mumbai after a few months’ adventures our relationship unfolded with clear commitment and love. The road has not been easy. We’ve faced several difficulties; stares, criticism, racism, bureaucracy, geography, money – from both our cultures. But with every closed door came an open window and helping hands. One example; Ashley was supposed to come visit Canada this summer to meet my family and announce our engagement. After paying hundreds of dollars and providing all the required paperwork his visitor visa was denied. The Canadian consulate officer was not convinced he’d leave after his intended two-week stay and he came from a country of poor income earners. I was indignant at such a prejudiced response but Ashley and his friends pulled into action, organizing a wedding for us in less than a month.

We were married July 26 in the Catholic and Goan tradition with nearly 200 friends and neighbours, including my mother Rita and Cindy Ryan who came all the way from Canada. It was the best day of my life and I’m still in shock at how it all came to be. I’ll have stories to tell for a lifetime in Victoria. Ashley and I both feel that the way we met, in the slum, at an event to help poor people, has shaped and influenced our relationship. In our own ways, we’ve adopted Dirty Wall’s mantra to “See a Need and Fill It” and hope to continue to do so the rest of our lives. We plan to have a Canadian wedding celebration in 2013.

From Ashley:

Little did I know what amazing surprises the future held for me when I resigned from my previous job in Qatar to head back home to Bombay. Through strange twists and turns my career path meandered over the past 10 years, which took me to the Gulf and then back again to Bombay. Being without a job for the first 6 months and then working on a part-time contract with a University in Qatar from Bombay was like a dream.

The past two years of my sojourn in working from home on my part-time job contract with a company in Qatar made me look inward. I thank God for allowing the rough curves, which helped me become a better driver on the road of life. I still remember the day when I dropped by the community center at Saki Naka to thank Ashley Pereira for his kind assistance in helping me with my Police clearance certificate. The moment I climbed to the roof of the Center’s office, I was startled to see a white guy in his 20s playing with a kid from the slums. I questioned myself  as to what was motivating Kane Ryan to go the extra mile to help, and almost be part of the daily lives of, people dwelling in the slums. I was amazed and captivated by the dedication of this Canadian gentleman who had dedicated his life to help the downtrodden in Indian society.

I still often reminisce the first football match I played with Kane before his parents could land in India for their long sojourn. The match was played at the St. Andrew’s College ground in Bandra in almost half a foot of muck. Thanks to Kane in the mid-field we were able to play a goal less draw with one of the best teams in the tournament.

Besides being a witness to the article which was published in the local Times of India Newspaper about Kane Ryan and his work with the Saki Naka slum community; Little did I know that with Kane’s parents in town soon would lead me to meeting my future wife Sarah Petrescu. Kane’s mom Cindy had already paired Sarah and myself in our first week of meeting each other. Todd, Kane’s dad had briefly introduced Sarah and myself at a local Diwali celebration at the Saki Naka slum community — which led to a rendezvous of adventures in Bangalore, Calcutta, Varanasi and culminated in Bombay.

With time I soon became a part of the Ryans’ household and have enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with them over lunch, dinner or coffee outings.  Kane and his family have been a backbone in supporting Sarah and myself through all phases of our relationship, right up to our marriage and even continuing to do so this very day. I am very grateful for all they have done for me, and now my wife Sarah, and hope to always be part of their lives.

On behalf of DWP and everyone in Saki Naka, we wish Sarah and Ashley an amazing life together.

Cheers,

Kane and Cindy Ryan

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