A Small set back

The weather in Bombay has become worse and I seem to have caught this miserable flu bug that has been doing its rounds. I was meant to start the workshops on Monday, but due to this sudden setback, I have to postpone it to mid-week sometime.

My contact at the chowl - Sumeet Gade, is thankfully handling the break up of the groups in my absence. We have decided to have 2 groups of 10 - 12 kids each (We've allowed a total of 22 kids to sign up). One on the weekends (Saturday & Sunday) and One during the week. Each group will meet twice a week. Also, we have one girl who is 23 years of age, who really wants to learn photography, who asked if she could also do the workshop, and I thought to myself, Why not?

Something funny I'd like to share with you though, about my meeting with some of the parents the other day. It seems like the kids are constantly busy - at school, with homework, playing football, going for tuitions (?) and some of the younger ones go for akanksha classes too, where they're taught english.

So the common consensus was to have the classes only during the weekend.

According to Sumeet though, the kids are always free roaming about doing pretty much nothing! So, this is my point, its always great to have a contact from within the community who can really help with these small issues that might be problematic for no reason at all. No matter how much, we may want to help, there will always be some skepticism from the other side. At the end of the day, I am an outsider, and till I don't get to spend time with the children, I will always be. The one thing, I consider as a set back is not having spent as much research time in the community as I would have liked. I have been going there every other day, but its just not enough to be part of them - as Sumeet is, since he is amongst them always.

Now, all I can do, is try and recover asap from this flu!