this is how confusion begins... :0)

मौसम-ए-गुल में अगर शाख़ से टूटे होते...

the comfort of knowing "where you are" .. :)

knowing "where you are" is such a comforting feeling... till you climb down four-stories (in the morning... where you had checked late last night) and see this on the notice-board :0)

oh!... just another Indian village

though.. perhaps this was not "just another Indian village" - it was far more prosperous than many of the others which I had chance to visit in the past few years:

uncertain childhoods... a photo-essay

Last month, I met some very delightfully chirpy kids in the most unanticipated of milieu...




They come to this "school" in the evening - when their mothers drop them there, and go to "work"




... as a part of the "Sonagachi Project" - run by Women's Interlink Foundation


Sonagachi, being one of the largest red-light districts in Asia, based in Kolkata...

Some of them - the girls - I found (with a sense of happiness/gratitude) are able to escape their destiny and make it to the "Homes" run by WIF.. and are able to find love of having a home and a family...





They get training in crafts, cooking, dance... (some get married, and some find jobs):






.. the "Homes" give a life not only to the Kids of Sonagachi - but also to those who get rescued from trafficking and domestic sexual violence... and make them 'individuals' to face the life with a confidence...


The day I visited one of the "Homes" was the Mothers' Day... it was a humbling experience for me witness these encounters of lost lives:




I came back happy that there was a hope for these lost childhoods... but with the memories of some faces/eyes, which will keep haunting me for ages to come...