I have returned from my trip with Saphara to India. The charity takes teachers and teams of sixth formers from schools in both sectors here to teach in schools for the poorest of the poor there. Fifty-four young people are going this summer to bring interactive learning and love to gorgeous little lives in the slums of Dehradun and the remote areas in Kaplani. Sitting on a train for eight hours as we travelled north I learned how to make friendship bracelets and penned a poem – all to avoid using the squat toilet!
India arrives, an assault to my senses.
She plays with my mind and my defences.
Splashes of colour and ‘rainy’ and wet,
People who smile and survive and hurt.
Literally sleeping on the job,
Driving in the care of a monkey god.
Beggars and hawkers along the way
‘Please mam sahib’ There’ll be hell to pay!
The sun rising, an Indian dawn
Waking to the orchestra of horns.
What is it to us, this
India we see?
Is it nothing to you, nothing to me?
Or is it possible, one child at a time
To make of this chaos some reason, some rhyme?
Is the God of creation watching the pain
Of the child who pleads again and again,
‘Please come and help us, give us rupees’?
What can I give him? I can give me.
From a child of plenty to a child deprived
The gift of today, to change her life and mine.
I love that art is a response to suffering and that we can use something like poetry to bring order to the chaos of our emotions. Tell us more about your trip!
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