A picnic had been a strong request for weeks now and so Himanshu and I thought that taking them to the Kala Ghoda Arts festival in Mumbai would be an extremely enjoyable experience for learning, sharing and engaging in other creative activities that are experienced by other people in this city.
Our Sunday began with a slow start. Organising 22 children and getting them on a public bus into town was a hard task! However on arrival, we realised that things were actually no going to get easier as we had initially thought! At the entrance of the children’s activity area of the festival we met a little resistance. We had asked for prior permission to bring approximately 20 children to the activity area and had received an ok, but when we arrived on Sunday, with our 22 children, 6 volunteers and all our bundles of excitement, we were told at first – ‘’sorry these children cant come in… you cant do this….and we will not get them a t-shirt….these children will come tomorrow again asking for t-shirts!”
Why does our class-based society promote so much social exclusion? These sweeping judgements were unnecessary and uncalled for. Just because our children don’t speak english and wear expensive clothes, they need not be excluded in actively participating in a festival that promotes arts and culture in the city. We were shocked! The children from Dharavi have homes, go to school and live in a place of richness and importance to the rest of the city.
But that was just a sour start that we soon sorted with a little anger, a little passion and a bit of pointless paperwork. The manager then came to meet us and was a nice young man that let us participate in the activities! The rest was a day of fun and memories, not only for the children but also Sytse, a fellow intern, said it was his best day in India so far!
The children got involved in clay-making activities, painting, getting tattoos painted on their arms, and some of the bold ones even got on stage to sing the audience a song. They walked around the festival curiously eyeing what caught their attention, listened to music, watched capoeria, ate wada pao and returned after a day of pleasurable enjoyment!
