Rotary Club of Bombay’s Anita Parikh Award for Empowerment of Women accepted by Robin Chaurasiya on behalf of Kranti Community Foundation
Rotary Club of Bombay’s Anita Parikh Award for Empowerment of Women accepted by Robin Chaurasiya on behalf of Kranti Community Foundation I wanted to start off with a few questions. Can you raise your hand if you’re passionate about social change?
Great.
Raise your hand if you’re passionate about human rights.
Raise your hand if you’re passionate about women’s rights,
education, health care, mental health, climate change.
Raise your hand if you wonder if your work is actually going to
have an impact in this world. Raise your hand if you wonder
about the meaning of success.
Raise your hand if you wonder sometimes about the purpose of life. Amazing. Thank you for being so honest. The good news is you’re going to have answers to all of these questions by the time I get off the stage. Imagine you are a 13-year-old girl in a small village in India. Your father is a farmer who has
Rs 3 lakh in debt and often talks about suicide.Your mother has TB, and her health is always terrible, so it’s your job to take care of your three younger siblings. You’ve never been to school.
When the first marriage proposal comes along at 14, your family agrees, saying it’ll be one less mouth to feed. You’re married off to a 40-yearold man who is an alcoholic and abusive, and his first wife recently left him. By the age of 16, you have two children, and you start doing domestic work in order to support those children. At 17, your husband’s friend says he has an amazing job lined up for you in the city, so you can go to the big city and earn lots of money, and you
will all live happily ever after. So, he takes you
to the city, and he sells you to a brothel. For
the next several years of your life, you have to
sleep with five to 10 men a day while your two
children sleep under the bed below you. Please
open your eyes.
So, my question for you is, where do you think
these children are now, the ones who grew up
under the bed? Where are they now? What
would we assume? That they’re doing sex work,
that they might be doing domestic servant jobs,
something like that, right?
(On PPT) This is Shweta who, at the age of 18,
became the first girl from a red light area ever
to study abroad. She won a scholarship to study
at Bard College in New York. By 19, she was
named a “25 under 25 young women to watch”
by Newsweek alongside Malala. At 20, she
received a Presidential Scholarship to Semester
at SEA, getting to sail on a ship that travelled to
20 different countries. And, at 21, she was given
the UN Youth Courage Award. And, in case
you haven’t noticed, she is here with us today.
These are the Sheikh sisters, whose mother was
trafficked from Bangladesh at the age of 14, and
she worked as a bar dancer here in Mumbai for
about seven years. These three beautiful, amazing
daughters of hers: the one on the right is Farah
who is studying to be a nurse in LA; Danish, who
is in her final year of her master’s programme in
Chicago; and Amreen who is 20 and just started
university at Gallaudet. She’s deaf and mute and
is studying in Washington, DC.
These are Mehak and Sumayya, who are 19
and 20. Sumayya just won a scholarship to
Atlas SkillTech in BKC where she is on a full
scholarship and free room and board. And
Mehak is studying theatre outside of Boston.
This is Shraddha who finished 12th a couple of
years ago, and since then has done art residencies
in Ireland and in The Netherlands. She has also
studied in Denmark recently and is going back
to Amsterdam to pursue a degree in art.
These are Sandhya and Ashwini who won
full scholarships to Ashoka University. They
both graduated recently. Sandhya just started a
master’s at the United Nations University for
Peace San José, Costa Rica; and Ashwini, in
two weeks, is about to head to Paris to start her
master’s degree. Ashwini, you want to say hi?
This is Ashi who is studying to become a special
needs educator in Philadelphia, and her biggest
passion in life is just to take care of special needs
children. That’s what she wants to dedicate her
life to. And this is Kavita, who is about to start
a master’s in yoga therapy here in Pondicherry.
Now, this isn’t all fun and games, and this work
isn’t always a perfect success story. These photos
might look pretty and wonderful, but I’ve spent
a lot of days negotiating with traffickers, a lot of
nights being beaten in jail by the police, and I’ve
spent a lot of years burying really young women
who deserved a much better life. But, like I said,
I’m going to summarise for you what I’ve learned
in 12 years in about five minutes. Ready?
So I think that we think of teachers as, you
know, they might be from Harvard Business
School, they might be the Prime Minister or the
President, but sometimes the people who can
teach us the most important lessons in life are
just in front of our faces. Or maybe they’re in the
red light area as well. So let’s start with a really
easy question first. What does it mean to live a
life of purpose?
Helping another person.
Doing something meaningful.
The Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is to
seek and spread happiness. And if we look closely
at what we’re doing, this is something that’s true
of us, it’s true of every person in here, it’s true of
every person and being on this planet. Everyone
wants to be happy and nobody wants to suffer.
This is something we have in common with cats
and dogs and children and adults and Asians and
Africans and Americans and everyone around
the globe, right? This is something that we have
in common with every sex worker. And this is
something we have in common with every single
Prime Minister on this planet. Everyone wants
to be happy.
So, this lesson I’ve learned from a young woman
named Pinky, who was trafficked at the age of
nine, came to Kranti at 14, and for many years
she struggled with addiction, self-harm, and
depression. Despite all those things and her
history, the one thing she does at the Kranti home
is sit around making people laugh, laughing at
herself and making everyone around her laugh.
And when I’m having a hard day, I just take a
pause and say, like, you know, if Pinky can laugh
and smile despite everything, that she’s been
through, why can’t I? Right? Why can’t any of
us?
Next question. What is a successful life? What does success mean? Being in the Guinness Book
of World Records, having 10 million dollars,
what is success?
Being happy.
What are we pursuing money for? In the hope
that it’s going to make us happy. What are we
pursuing anything for? In the hope that it’s going
to make us happy. So, the Dalai Lama again says
our prime purpose in this life is to help others
and this is true success. I’m not saying that we
should all endorse or agree with the Dalai Lama’s
idea of what success is, but I just wanted to share
one story about somebody who truly taught me
the meaning of success.
Tanya was 12 years old when her mother died,
leaving her and her four-year-old sister behind.
For the next four years, her stepfather raped
her every single day. By the age of 15, she had
dropped out of school, had two abortions, and
tried to kill herself three times. At age 16, she
made the hardest decision of her life, which was
to run away from home, leaving her eight-yearold sister behind. Luckily she came to Kranti,
where she spent six years pursuing and fulfilling
her education, making up for all those years she’d
lost, and eventually trained to become a Zumba
instructor and a facilitator for different types of
workshops. In the past three years, Tanya has
worked with over 5,000 children across India,
some with terminal illnesses, some with special
needs, and many girls who are orphans. Now
she works full-time at an orphanage here in
Mumbai in Dharavi and supports 40 girls who
are orphans. And you know what Tanya spends
all of her salary on? Taking care of and feeding
ice-cream and snacks to the kids that she sees
begging on the street. Tanya, do you want to
stand up?
So, I think that I have truly learned the meaning
of success from Tanya. It’s not that I’m going to
end trafficking in this lifetime. It’s not that Tanya
is going to be able to feed or take care of every
single orphan in Mumbai. And yet it’s literally
to wake up and give the best that we can give
today. We all have something to give. If Tanya
has something to give, we all have something
to give. And that truly is, to me, the definition
of success. You don’t have to be a millionaire
in order to help people out. You don’t have to
be the richest person in the world, or you don’t
have to have a lot of resources in order to be able
to help people. And that is what we can measure
our success on.
And last question. What is a life of love? This
is actually the hardest question. Anyone want to
take a stab at that one? What is love?
Acceptance, lovely. What else?
So, the Dalai Lama says, if you want
others to be happy, practice love and
compassion. If you want to be happy,
practice love and compassion. Right?
And this is a lesson that I cannot begin
to explain to you how important it is
for me and the person from whom I’ve
learned it.
So, I know a woman named Zarina who was
trafficked at the age of nine. She was sold when she
finally started menstruating. She was auctioned
off to somebody for 1000 rupees. Her virginity
was sold for 1000 rupees. By the age of 16, she
had four children and two of her daughters were
actually the first girls at Kranti. Again, going back
to who we think of as our teachers, this person
taught me the most important lesson I have ever
learned in my life. So, Tanya’s mother actually
had passed away in the red light area and I was
travelling at the time. And many of the girls have
told me that when a sex worker doesn’t have a
family, basically her body is just dumped out on
the street to be picked up by the BMC, just like a
dead dog. And we all realise, right, we’re talking
about a couple kilometres away from here. This
is the reality of how people die.
So, I said to myself, I can’t let that happen to
Tanya’s mother. I’m going to call this woman
Zarina. So, I called her and I said, will you
please take care of the arrangements, burial,
cremation, whatever it may be. Can you just
make the arrangements? She called me back and
she said some words that I have never, ever, ever
forgotten and probably never will in my entire
life. She said, Robin, I don’t care how many
people I have to sleep with, but I promise you
that I’m never going to let a woman, a dead sex
worker, be tossed on the street like a dog.
I think we can all agree that sex work is not
an easy job. And many of us like to think of
ourselves as very generous when we hand over
five rupees or ten rupees to somebody on the
street and we’ve done our good deed for the day.
Now, this is a rhetorical question. Nobody has to
answer. Do you have it within you to say that you
would sleep with as many strangers as you need
to in order to pay for the cremation or burial of
somebody you’ve never met? My answer is no,
definitely not. And yet, we’re all able to sacrifice
ourselves, our bodies, our souls, our beings, our
lives for people we love. How many of us could
actually sacrifice that for somebody we’ve never
met? And on that note, Zarina, please, hi bolo.
This is Zarina.
So, my biggest question for you is who are your
teachers? Who are we looking at to tell us how
to lead a beautiful life, how to live a meaningful
life or a life of purpose? Are we looking at the
people, our neighbours who have better cars
than us? Are we looking at people who are on
the Forbes’ richest list? Who are we looking to,
to learn how to be better human beings?
And, as the person before me just spoke so
sweetly and kindly and very beautifully about
what it means, even in death, that we can still
give something to people. There is so much that
we always have the ability to give. And yet, what
are we spending our time on? Because guess
what?
The time is very, very, very limited. For
you, for me, for everyone in this room
and everyone on this planet, that time
is very limited. So, do we want to take
businessmen and the richest people of
this country or the world as the people
that we’re striving to be? Or maybe do
we have something to learn from a sex
worker?
My last couple of questions that I want you to
keep asking yourself all the time is,
Am I living a life of purpose?
How can I be of service right now? It’s not a
matter of I’m going to do this someday. After I
retire, I’m going to do good in the world. There’s
something you can do today. Right?
And lastly, how can I be more loving or
compassionate or kind today than I was
yesterday?
If every single day you’re able to make a little bit
of progress on all of these questions, I guarantee
you, you’re going to have the best sleep in the
world, you’re going to be one of the happiest
people in the world, and you’re going to be one
of the most successful people in the world.
(Video plays)
Thank you. I just briefly want to say, on a very,
very sad note, we were recently evicted from our
home. This is our eighth eviction in the 12 years
that we’ve been working. No matter how pretty
everything looks, the moment people find out
that these girls are from a red light area, the next
day we get an eviction notice. Actually, the first
time was when Shweta got that scholarship to
New York. It was all over the news. The next
day, we received an eviction notice. So we have
finally decided that we are abandoning our jaan
(darling) Mumbai and moving to Himachal.
For the last 12 years, we’ve lived in a 1200 square
foot home with almost 20 to 25 girls and women
living together. And finally, we want to be able to
say yes to all the requests that come to us to take
in more children, rather than having to say no to
everyone all the time. So we have decided we’re
moving to Himachal. We’re buying a house.
And I’m looking at doing about Rs 1 crore of
fundraising. So I would absolutely, if anyone
wants to speak to me about this afterwards, I
would really, really appreciate it.
I wish I didn’t have to end on such a depressing
note. But thank you, guys, everyone, for the
incredible work that Rotary does and for being a
part of this incredible organisation. Thank you.