The slums present to me the most vulnerable populace of the country of India. A chunk of population that is prone to the slightest of catastrophe striking them. What would otherwise have been a manageable accident for the rest of the population is a cataclysm that could fling them below the poverty line in just one jolt. An illness could be one such thing amongst many other.
At SEWA, my work encompasses the linkage of Home Based workers to health services provided by them at nominal or free of charge. The arrangement is such where the doctor is invited to visit the workers who are all waiting to be checked under what is referred to as a ‘camp’. These Health camps and their regular organization for ensuring a periodic check on the member’s health are only helpful to the extent of diagnosis of the ailment, if any. The burden of procuring the subsequent prescriptions lies solely on the member. We’re attempting to alter this by trying to subsidize the medicines along with requesting the doctor to prescribe cheap substitutes as the members complain of inability to purchase the exorbitantly prized drugs. And then there are a myriad of other concerns that stem from one basic issue, being debated and altercated for too long now, denial of affordable and quality health services by the state. The primary cause of ill health in the area is financial inability to pay, indifference and lack of accessible medical services. In areas with a hospital, what is available is not affordable. Thus, the need of Universal Healthcare to all. Health being a basic need and a healthy population the foremost obligation of the government, the need to provide it to all, and not just the poor, vests on the state. However, the need for state-sponsored quality healthcare is deemed vital for the underprivileged chunk as the relatively opulent mass can easily avail it privately. The unchecked private expansion of healthcare where quality is proportional to the cost has merely exacerbated the prevalent inequality.The National Rural Health Mission by the Government did bring in an attempt for affordable healthcare, however, the mollification was only to the extent of covering 29% of total medical expenditure which excluded coverage for medicines, diagnostic tests and outpatient care.For abating the execrable situation, the dire need is the assignment of priority and the subsequent deployment of wealth in the same direction. We really need to deploy our wealth in the necessary areas, parks can be constructed later, the ailing population needs the funds. For the same, tax-funded health services could be a respite since contributory health services, again, would be inappropriate for India as 93% of its working population is unorganized. Needless to say, more part of our GDP needs to be veered towards health care services, we have one of the lowest spending on health.

To compromise for Government’s ineptitude, however, there are various functional non-governmental agencies taking the lead. We too are trying. Needless to say, however, that none of these organizations can completely outdo or replicate the role of the state. A private-public partnership can be a negotiation, however, again, a purely private venture would be unsuitable for the lower rung of the population due to what is referred to as the ‘informational asymmetry’ by the Kolkata committee led by Amartya Sen. The right to healthy living is a basic right and thus, must be facilitated by the state outside legal propagation.There’s work to be carried out on both, policy and implementation levels. Till the state breaks its slumber and assumes the much urgent role it needs to, we’d keep contributing our bit like we’ve been.Healthy living is everyone’s right and the access to it must not be proportional to one’s affluence. All lives are precious!

Chai main peeti nahi aur paani mujhe nuksaan karta hai was the biting response flung by her at the lucrative luring of Chai Pani. Sarita Behan, as she's fondly called, doesn't usually refrain when a spade needs to be addressed as a spade. The SEWA culture has a unique practice that encourages all its members/employees to address every other member/employee by suffixing a "Behan/Bhai" to their names. This, they say, is to encourage the equality of treatment and thought and successfully so. The sisterhood among the women working here can be evidently observed in the regular banters exchanged at the centres. I met Savita Behan yesterday. I was supposed to visit one of SEWA's offices in the far eastern part of the city. I often frequent this office but my visits to its adjoining centre are few and rare. This centre is a place where students enrolled in the SEWA education and skill development program are taught and trained. Additionally, this is also the centre that operates for the mobilisation and organisation of Domestic workers of the area. It is at this centre's Information desk that Sarita Behan sits and the request to prepare a fake birth certificate in return of "Chai Pani" was what garnered the above acerbity from her. The centre is always occupied with women of diverse age groups working in synergy. The bonds thus forged seem to have the capacity to transcend the barriers of age. The myriad innocuous banters by the elders thus, meeting the unfailing witty retorts of the younger.
Back to Sarita Behan. A scrawny woman with gaunt cheeks and sharp tongue taking down notes on the desk. That's her. And occasionally, an incident follows the introduction of Sarita Behan. One which coerces you to deem that if an iota of her effrontery was imbibed by every breathing human female, lives for all us females collectively would have been a little better. Sarita Behan hails from the slums of the surrounding area. One morning, like all others, she survived an entire queue of waiting women to fill her water containers as the State hasn’t yet been proficient enough to ensure the supply of free and clean drinking water to every household. The community tap thus being a respite. On arrival of her turn as Sarita Behan bent to fill her buckets, she felt a hand feeling her back. She straightened up to turn and saw a man much younger to her standing there. To ensure that it wasn't an accident, she bent to fill her buckets again. The hands repeated their actions too. This time, she turned around and questioned "Kya Chahiye, what do you want?”. "I want to fill my buckets, what else", came the quick retort. The still calm Sarita Behan then ordered the women to make space for him to fill his buckets first "Sab hato zara, pehle ise bhar lene do paani, let him fill his buckets first." The man then drooped himself to the tap and filled his bucket. Thereafter, he started to scurry home. Sarita Behan quickly instructed a fellow woman to watch over her filled buckets while she started to follow the scumbag to his residence. All along the way, she kept swearing at him. This caused him to turn and question if she was following him to which Sarita Behan agreed with an air of cultivated nonchalance. When requested by the man to stop swearing, she replied with a curt " Jab maarungi toh chup ho jaaungi ,I'll be quiet when I hit you". Upon knowing his residence, she returned to her buckets, shoved them inside her home and sternly instructed her children to be home until she arrives. Thereafter, she walked to his house and brought him out from inside, then without any explanation, she took off her slippers and started to continuously hit him in the face with it. This continued for about fifteen minutes and by then, a swarm of people had crowded to spectate Sarita Behan's continual pounding in awe. Then quietly, Sarita Behan told him "Dekha, bola tha na, jab maarungi toh bolungi nahi".The few people from the crowd stepping forward to stop Sarita Behan were quickly warned by her, "Stay out of it, it's between me and him". Sarita Behan then dragged him to the police station and lodged an FIR against him on account of eve teasing. That's Sarita Behan. I hope you know her a little better now.
A little bit of Sarita Behan in all of us would have warded off a lot of street harassment we put up with. All it takes to put an end to it is a little courage on our part. Anyhow, I really started to look up to Sarita Behan's fiery courage and effrontery. Seriously. She, however, says that SEWA gave her the courage and opportunity to cross the confines of her doorstep and venture in the outside world. Ironical. And most women I come across at work are no different from Sarita Behan. All having their own stories that help them stand out. When contrasted against their circumstances, their act of stepping outside the houses and sitting where they are was an act of immense difficulty in itself. Yet the ease with which they've blended into SEWA and with each other is remarkable. The knowledge of the support of "Behans" is so profound that it has emerged as a source of inspiration and confidence amongst many women. Thus, no denying the collective strength of these women. Of us women. All it takes is that little effort. The effort that all these women attempt at making. Are making. The effort that we have yet to make. SEWA’s strength lies in the collective strength of its members. Come to think of it, there’s hardly an objective that collective strength can’t achieve and yet peculiar that oppressing minds are fewer than the oppressed ones. We’ve yet to identify our collective strength as a society. The dynamics of misguiding a mass are easily attainable, sadly. However, hopefully, one day we’ll get over our thrifty grievances to realize what we truly deserve. At work, with the likes of Sarita Behan around, managing many laughs daily is not so tough. It’s a tough life for most but we manage to seep in a few smiles on all our faces.
And it is here that I truly realize what Ela Bhatt meant at SEWA’s inception when she asserted “We’re poor but too many”. Indeed, we’re poor but too many. And that’s all we ever need. Each other.

So exactly a month of my stay in Delhi completes itself. Without a doubt, it was horrible. A few good moments, nevertheless but mostly horrible. My part of the city is at its loathsome best. Anyhow, since i am done cribbing about it copiously to every enthusiast earnest in giving my Delhi life an ear, I'd refrain from the same here. Delhi has been hideous in many ways but had it not been for Delhi, I'd have been forever starved of the amazing perspectives it has bestowed me with. The lesser delved facet of life and people, at least for me. To begin with, the reason for my Delhi stay is my short internship with the Self Employed Women's Association(SEWA) and in particular, their operations in Delhi .Phew!

Wasn't so easy for me initially,I'll admit. Regardless of my ardent willingness to work with them, the field visits to the slums weren't easy. The intolerable filth around, the puddles of foul smelling black water every three steps, excrement and what not! To top it, the completely umplumbed locality. The gawking eyes and the fixated gazes everywhere I went. The unsafe outskirts. Everything completely efficient in discouraging me from walking my way to work the next morning. But somehow i sailed through it for a month and it is now in retrospect that the keenest of lessons learnt from these brief visits strike me. I work for and with women who are Home Based workers. Albeit, such workers produce myriad of artifacts, my association is particularly with the women who weave/stitch/embroider. They embellish fabrics in an attempt to embellish their lives. All kinds of women from 15 to 60 are involved in this work. We at SEWA work towards unionizing them, linking them directly to national/international producers/markets in an attempt to obliterate the role and presence of the contractor/middleman chiefly responsible for their exploitation.We also try and link them to other policies of SEWA that benefit them such as banking and health care,to mention a few. There's much more we do for them(or at least try to!) but I'd let that be. For me to obtain a first-hand grip of things around here, I was exposed to extensive field work. Thus, I had an opportunity to see how their world functions. Much like mine, yet very unlike. Needless to say, what's provided to me almost effortlessly is a struggle for them. To be able to get out of the confines of four walls and work with us was not the first of their struggles but after the boundary was crossed a lot did change in their lives. And ours. For me, it was another standpoint in observing the zest to live life so closely. A set of three sisters who had not much crossed the threshold of their shanty have now taken control over their lives by their new found financial independence. However, the threshold is still uncrossed for some,sadly.

For the rest, it's the vivacity of the laughter as they all weave hope together with their tiny hands is what attaches them to SEWA. The smiles that I come across as I hop around from one worker to another, talking and questioning washes off all that muck that I so whined about. Below what you see are hands of Fareeda, weaving her life with little beads. She does this for a living. With a month spent with workers like her, their spirit is amazingly infectious. And this is not even a fourth of what I saw. There's a lot more to come. In pieces. Operating within the societal constraints and working towards achieving their little piece of freedom, what they do is truly awe-inspiring. And oh, will keep periodically whining about Delhi too!

Picture Courtesy: The SEWA Delhi website(http://sewadelhi.org/)
And here's the SEWA website, just in case: http://www.sewa.org/