Nexus of Good: Hansta Bachpan

At the heart of this endeavour, Hansta Bachpan started by Dr Rita Sharma, a retired IAS officer in Gomtinagar, Lucknow is the idea that all children should be able to look forward to one weekly evening of merriment and enjoyment and be exposed to new and interesting stories, events, ideas and slap-stick comedy.

The venture was started two years ago with about 20 children and has now swelled to 450. Some children go to school. Many do not. Dr Sharma and her family try to get to know them better, but many are children of labourers who leave once the construction work is over. But more of them come.

It is an unusual social and philanthropic start-up. It might even be unique.

The time the children spend at Hansta Bachpan is neither pedagogical nor pedantic. There is no teaching and no tests. Children are exposed to new and interesting ideas and left very much to take away what they like.

Content downloaded from the internet is shown for the first hour. Sourced from YouTube, it is broadly for children between the ages of five and twelve, roughly the age of most children who come to Hansta Bachpan. There are also young teens, some of whom bring along their infant siblings.

Rita Sharma spends a significant part of the week surfing the internet, assembling a variety of video clips touching on a wide range of themes.

Stories of kindness and ‘Pay it Forward” constitute a chunk. Inspirational items from the world of sports, music, and dance, lauding the triumph of the human spirit in overcoming handicaps and disabilities, also add to the repertoire. Tales from Panchatantra are followed with as much interest as a selection from the world’s most famous stories, such as The Happy Prince and the Selfish Giant in Hindi.

The marching beats of Republic Day parades, the brass bands and the smartly turned-out women's contingents cause excitement. Magic shows from talent programmes around the world, mimicry, yodelling, and pantomime make up the assortment of audio-visual clips. The evergreen images of ‘mile sur mera tumhara’, the original song, and its brilliant hand shadow show is another video played several times. The Chandrayan Landings left an impression, spurring one of the boys to make a cardboard model of the spacecraft and share it with the rest of the children, who cheered him on.

Social, civic and environmental messages are subtly woven into the amusement and hilarity. Messages, mimes, songs, and dramas on Environment Day, Earth Day, educate the children about reducing plastic pollution, preserving biodiversity, kindness to animals, tree plantation, and water conservation. There are also riddles, pahelians, and fun with numbers. There was a week when experts on sanitation and hygiene volunteered to demonstrate the importance of cleanliness to the children. Each child was given a hygiene dental kit.

The Bhamla Foundation has come out with peppy songs on biodiversity and plastic pollution. The children quickly memorise the catchy tunes and easy lyrics of Kasam yeh khayen re plastic tik na paye re … Chalo pani bachate hain… and enjoy singing along. Gattu and Chinki, the popular animation characters, regale with their adventures including issues such as traffic rules.

Hansta Bachpan is also interactive. Mike in hand, children recite poems and tell jokes and stories. They dance to the tunes of Jerusalema, Kacha Badaam, Natu Natu, and the like. The foot-tapping songs Itti si hasi, Itti si khushi … from the film Barfi and Dil hai chota sa … from Roja have become great favourites. The children insist on repeats. If Hansta Bachpan had a theme song, it would be these.

The essence and core of Hansta Bachpan are the cartoons and funny shows which keep the children in splits. Chhota Bheem, Super Bheem, the Hindi dubbed episodes of Mowgli’s Jungle Book, Masha and the Bear get a lot of laughs. But it is the genius musical score and the unmatched comedy of Pink Panther and Tom and Jerry that sends them squealing and rolling with laughter. Their laughter is contagious. The appeal of Tom and Jerry to both young and old alike is timeless and universal and brings back heart-warming memories of childhood.

The last part of the programme goes into distributing the packets of snacks including Amul flavoured milk, biscuits, toffees, bananas, and namkeen which Rita prepares weekly. On special occasions, cakes and ice cream are distributed. When the children were fewer in number each one was given a back-pack.

In the beginning, the children who had learnt of Hansta Bachpan from word-of-mouth came for the snacks and refreshments. Rita, however, hopes that for many of them who return again and again, it is not just the food but the excitement of the exposure they get to the other worlds out there. Moreover, it is also part of a togetherness for mutual fun. It is something they look forward to all week.

The children sometimes make thank you cards to express their affection for Rita. She says it is an extraordinary feeling and a privilege.

The experience of the past two years has shown that there is far less quality material in Hindi than one might expect. There is a lot more in English. There is a need for developing free internet content in Hindi which the children can enjoy and also learn from. The quality of dubbing of the currently available video material needs to improve. Subtitles in Hindi are not of much use.

A whole new video genre needs to be created for children such as those who come to Hansta Bachpan.

These days, there is a great deal of emphasis on upscaling successful models in education, and health. Dr Sharma is still determining where her Hansta Bachpan fits in. It is growing by word of mouth. It is resource-intensive. Apart from the refreshments purchased every week, household staff and family members help prepare the 450 packets. She invested in a projector to project video clips onto the portico wall.

Hansta Bachpan presents a wonderful example of Nexus of Good. However, is Hansta Bachpan scalable further? It could be through networking, voluntary work, philanthropic inputs, and a social media presence, which it currently does not have. The question, however, is whether it needs to be upscaled. Working on a smaller scale makes a difference and is equally satisfying. Retired people looking to make a difference but not able to commit to teaching or without staffing and resources can once a week, once a fortnight, or once a month invite 10-15 children from under-privileged communities into their homes and use their televisions and laptops to expose them to worlds beyond their present one and allow them to laugh and have fun.

In this remarkable venture, Rita Sharma is supported by her husband, Vijai Sharma, also her batchmate. Her daughter, Betwa, is a staunch ally. She hopes that some of what happens at Hansta Bachpan stimulates the imagination of the youngsters and stays with them as they grow up. If this happens for even a few, it will be a blessing. Meanwhile, watching the children laughing at Tom and Jerry makes for the most treasured memories and moments.

Views expressed are personal