“All potential,” my mother murmured, gazing into the eyes of her newborn grandchild. “What will you become, pennyface?” That’s how it is at every birth, whether of a child or an idea or an institution, and it’s what makes beginnings so exciting. Everything is promise, everything is possible. The future lies ahead, and glory is just around the corner.
When we opened Karuna Vihar ten years ago, we had no idea how this fledgling institution would grow. We never imagined that in the space of one decade, we would also start an early intervention centre, a centre for vocational training, a home management program, an awareness campaign and a village outreach project. We never dreamed that we would meet hundreds of children and their families, train dozens of special educators and therapists or sell calendars to thousands of faithful supporters. All we knew was that one little girl named Moy Moy needed a school and it was our task to build it for her.
Growing up! We were adults when we began this adventure for our children ten years ago, but in many ways we were babies ourselves, uncertain of the way forward yet as confident as any infant that we would be taken care of. It was a lovely time, those days before we realized that bills do not pay themselves and that schools cannot run on love alone. It seemed that as long as we didn’t pay too much attention, the bills did pay themselves, the school did run on love alone.
One by one objects are defined –
it quickens – clarity, outline of leaf.
But now the stark dignity of entrance – still,
the profound change has come upon them: rooted,
they grip down and begin to awaken.
In those days, Karuna Vihar was like a game we were playing. And then, – overnight, it seemed – we grew up. In his poem, “Spring and All”, William Carlos Williams describes the process:
And here we are now, here to stay, gripping down, wide awake. We have made mistakes and we will no doubt continue to make them, but when we fall, we forgive ourselves, get up and start again. We know what we are doing now. We understand more clearly the task we have begun and every day, we are better equipped to accomplish it. We still laugh more than most people! We have such fun doing what we do.
This 10th Karuna Vihar calendar is in black and white – a first for us, for whom growing up has been a slow realization that the world is suffused not only with colour but also with beautiful shades of grey. Life is seldom an either/or situation: good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, light vs. dark, black vs. white. Life is more complicated, less tidy, and one person’s disability is another’s greatest gift.
But some things are black and white and it takes a grown-up soul with the heart of a child to see them: the power of love, the beauty of each person and the human spirit’s endless capacity for growth.
-–Jo Chopra
