Saved by the youth

My hope for a better future rests in those who demonstrate the power of the human spirit

Last week, I read about a household where I happened to know a few people quite well. This family, of able-bodied adults and children, is unfortunately, not doing very well. Unsurprisingly, some of the problems facing this household are grave. But it is not the gravity of the problems that is daunting, it is the attitude of the adults in the household that is demoralising. While the adults are shirking their responsibility, when the approaching calamities reach the doorstep, it is the youth and the children who are carrying the heavy load to keep afloat.



The household, the dear homeland, is fast becoming a land where seniors, both in rank and in social status, could not care less about the dismal state of education. The fast approaching apocalypse of intolerance and hatred, bred largely by ignorance, is not a priority of those who care only about roads and bridges, nor those who camp in the capital and regurgitate the same speech in towns across the nation. Neither is it on the short list of action items for those who do nothing and continue to ignore the famine enveloping children in the backyard of their own constituencies.

The household would be in a lot more trouble if it was not for real champions of change and true humanitarians like Aansoo Kohli of Umerkot. A young, physically handicapped, Hindu girl from one of the most impoverished parts of the country, belonging to a community marginalised for decades, with no chance of land ownership ever, is fighting for real and permanent change. Her modest Kombho Mal Primary school, located in a part of the country that few know about, is providing education to more than 200 boys and girls. Without a real structure, a playground, a toilet or a water cooler, she is giving everything she has got and then some more. Aansoo’s school is also providing education to many who have mental health challenges — children the rest of us cannot be bothered to think about and have pretty much written off anyway.

In a province that is highly innovative when it comes to creating new ways of bad governance and rudderless leadership, Aansoo is showing both the vision and the character by leading from the front. She is running a school that provides free education, both in the morning and in the evening, to those who are not even on the margins of our society. She cares for the mentally and physically handicapped and is preparing for her own BS exams. Yet, she does it with a smile and a will that shames the complaining attitude of those in power, who lament the lack of resources, the floods, the opposition and foreign conspiracies for their negligence and ballooning incompetence.

In a country where success demands that you be of the right gender, ethnicity, religion, sect, feudal lineage and financial means, and having a physical handicap puts you out of the folds of the society-at-large permanently, Aansoo is as unlikely a champion of change as we are ever going to get. A physically disabled Hindu girl, belonging to the most impoverished group within a highly marginalised community, hailing from the wrong province, fighting for the highest of causes should make us pause. It should give us hope in the human spirit that fights for the right cause despite all the barriers we create. Yet, it should also make us think about what all of us, with all our means, prejudices, biases and excuses, are doing in our own spheres for those who are voiceless and those who yearn to seek a better future.

My hope for a better future does not rest with those who abuse the power of the electorate, it rests in those who demonstrate the power of the human spirit. I am hopeful for a better future because of all the Aansoos of the nation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2014.

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