Lara Shankar – India

Linked with India: Homeless Street Children, and with Children’s Rights and You CRY.
Added Dec. 4, 2008: and linked with Shabana Azmi – India.

Lara Shankar is a social worker and child-rights activist who has spent over five years working with street children and addressing issues concerning children and their rights. After completing her master’s in child development from Lady Irwin College, Delhi University, Lara has worked with several organizations, including Salaam Baalak Trust, Butterflies, Youthreach, Childline India Foundation and Child Rights and You (CRY) in Delhi and Mumbai. She continues to research, document and fight for the realization of child rights. Lara Shankar lives in Mumbai with her husband, Manu Chandra, a strategy and management consultant. (Penguin books India), presenting her book: Midway Station: Real-Life Stories of Homeless Children, Oktober 2006; (also on allBookstores.com; on flipkart.com online; and on amazon).

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Sorry, no photo found for Lara Shankar, India (… and no other text found about her bio and work than her book’s presentation. Despite this, I want her work to be acknowledged.
More down you may find some more NGOs and articles regarding Street Children in India).

She writes: … The Juvenile Justice System in India claims to exist for the care, protection, rehabilitation and development of neglected and delinquent children. Children who are without homes must derive good from this system and find a place where they feel safe, protected and cared for. However, inspite of these noble intentions, the children feel anything but benefited. More often than not, they are forcibly brought to these socalled ‘homes’ and the general feeling among them is that they have been ‘caught’ and put into ‘jails’. They recall being beaten, held by the neck and taken to juvenile welfare courts, without being given any explanation. “When the hearing for children takes place at the children’s courts, the magistrate asks us if we have anything to say. But they do all the proceedings in English and then they just take us out of the room. We do not get a chance to speak,” claimed a 14-year-old boy living in an observation home … (full text in Voices of the Future, not dated).

There are millions of children in India today who spend their childhood on the streets, in railway stations and jail-like shelters, living on the edge and taking each day as it comes. Some have been abandoned; others have chosen to run away from harsher realities at home; yet others have been born on the streets and know no other life. In Midway Station child-rights activist Lara Shankar records the voices of eleven such children living in shelters in Delhi. We meet, among others, Mohan, who hopped on to a train in Chennai when he was four to escape from his stepmother; Allam, who sends money to his mother whenever he can and visits her in Bihar during Id; and Rani, who thinks life in the shelter is too comfortable and looks back with nostalgia on her days as a domestic servant. What emerges from these narratives is a nightmarish world of poverty and neglect, rape and murder, Mafiosi-like gangs and police brutality. Yet there are redemptive stories of courage too, of friendships made and kindnesses repaid. Poignant and hard-hitting, these real-life stories of homeless children are testimony to their resilience in the face of adversity, their will to carry on and determination to build a life of dignity. ‘The author discovers a world most of us close our eyes to. It is the world of homeless children living rootless, incomplete lives. Midway Station is a work of care and concern and an effort to make all of us think of the invisible and underprivileged child, who is also the face of tomorrow’s India.’ -Shabana Azmi, actor and social worker … (on sifyMall). Same on book4u.in;

Street Children in India – some NGOs and articles:

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Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti – England-Scottland and USA

Linked with The Padded Bed: The Epileptic in Western Medicine.

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti is a British poet and author living in the United States who has published widely in the United States and in Europe. Although she has written for print publications, she is most widely known as a result of her prolific output online. Besides running the blog she founded tantmieux she also serves as a regular contributor to Blogcritics, is an established writer for various online and print magazines (specifically writing about Bob Dylan, Lewis Carroll as well as cultural and political issues), and is Senior Cultural & Political Editor with Cyrano’s Journal Online. Ranson is also a well-established poet both in the United States and in Europe. She is the founder of The Tant Mieux Project, incorporating Bob Dylan on Tant Mieux … (full text, last modified on 19 October 2008).

… Even if you’re a relative newcomer to Blogcritics, you’ve undoubtedly encountered Sadi by now. A contributor since May of 2004, longtime readers know her to be a writer of uncommon candor and perception. The honesty that suffuses her musings on music and film and her many personal essays never fails to strike a chord with readers, as is easily gleaned from a casual glance at the comments her posts garner. Her grasp of the ties that bind us together as human beings and her willingness to put herself under the microscope are hallmarks of her work … (full text by Lisa McKay, April 03, 2006).

She says:… « I find sleep a waste of time. Why sleep, I think, when I could be up writing. That I may be tired the next day simply does not occur as a reasonable thought. If Hans were here, this fuzzy logic would make sense to him, I think » … (full text).

Find some of her poems on the Adroitly Placed Word.

her PEN American Society Member Page.

all sadi ranson-polizzotti’s blogs.

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Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti – England-Scottland and USA

tant mieux – poems and chants.

auntie sadi’s advice for girls.

so much the better … .

She writes: … These signs combined with “just a feeling”, assuming you are not a paranoid person, then you may wish to pursue your feeling further. I won’t say the word suspicion because it’s a word cheaters use all the time. You are made to feel as if you are crazy or nuts for thinking that they are cheating on you. Your spouse may even tell you you are crazy. That you are a nag, that you are boring because this is all you talk about etc. etc. This is a diversion tactic and don’t fall for it. The best thing you can do is NOT approach your partner at this time but go about finding out the truth of the situation so that you can decide what you want to do: whether you stay or go, the choice is yours and either option is valid. The goal is to live honestly — and both options are there because different people bear different things … (full text, December 9th, 2004).

epilepsy and exorcism – all the rage? January 17, 2006.

I remember Saul Bellow, July 23rd, 2006.

electroencephologram, poem on Tant Mieux, December 9, 2004.

She writes also: love, like life, can be so painful at times that it twists and turns and we yearn. it confuses and bends and stretches. it comes unexpected, it leaves if neglected, sometimes not. sometimes it thrives regardless, like the weed (which is just another name for a flower that some would say is ‘unwanted’.) But whether we want to love or not, or to be in-love, we are stuck with it regardless and there is no getting around it. One can be like Penelope from the Odyssey, waiting for her lover hanging on to only hope where perhaps there is no sign of it for as long as twenty  – an endless tableaux and a folly to a love that is perhaps impossible – or not. Who can say. What i do know for sure is that where there is love there will be happiness, there will be joy, and there will be grief. (on tantmieux, late march, 9.42 a.m., 2008).

Wired: Vagus Nerve Stimulation, Epilepsy, and Me, November 10, 2006.

of fugues & fireflies – a.k.a. Grand Mal, 17th June 2005.

to make a difference through my writing, Oct 5, 2007.

Find her and her publications on internet archive.org; on amazon; on wikipedia (1 Early career, 2 Lumen Editions & Publications, 3 Background sketch, 4 Vogue – Authors Worked With, 5 Lewis Carroll – Bob Dylan – Editorships, 6 Original Poetry & Essays About Poetry, 7 Books & Notable Works, 8 Webpages and Online Writing, 9 Some Epilepsy Writings, 10 Essays & Reviews about Ranson-Polizzotti); on linkedIn; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.

And she writes: I have to keep moving forward, regardless of what any doctor may say or any health official or anyone in the field. It seems I get yet more and more bad news and yet I am the furthest thing from a hypochondriac (in fact, I’m not even clear on how to spell the bloody word) and yet, I seem to bring with me a plague of illness ever since I was a young child … (full text, January 16, 2006).

masked & anonymous bob dylan – jack fate tells us ours, Feb. 09, 2008.

She says also: « I am a liar.
It’s a hard thing to admit, but there it is … (full text, May 21, 2005).

lettre pour un ami, May 23, 2008.

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