Damu

Thinking of a title for this, I felt lost. I thought and put it down and erased it, nothing fits well and so I left it at “Damu”.

I met Damu for the first time in Nandanachechi’s home after we moved to Bangalore, in 2002. What attracted me most to him was his gentle style, his welcoming smile and his shining, not twinkling eyes, like a child’s, innocent. My awe for him only increased when someone mentioned to me that he is the Founder Director of The Concerned for Working Children. Being in the corporate world a director is a person with power, dressed to show the authority, speaks to impress……and here was Damu in his dhoti and long kurta, a long flowing beard, so soft spoken that one needed to go near him to be able to hear him. He and Nandanachechi founded CWC an organization to empower working children. My layman’s understanding that children should not be working changed to protecting the rights of a working child, empowering them with knowledge of safe work, empowering them to speak up for children’s rights, to believe that children are tomorrow’s citizens and hence teaching them to organize them selves via the “makkala panchayat” in Karnataka.

Damu and CWC are synonymous and when i see him walking in “Namma Bhoomi” at Kundapura, its like he is nurturing the place and the organization like he nurtures the children ar “Namma Bhoomi”. At any point in time there are a 100 plus children there who are brought there by the police….runaway children, abused children, children of criminals who in their young yet bright minds have understood things in their own perspective and have risen to survive. Damu is the healing soul for them, it is not that he mollycoddles them but he is there teaching them to be one with the nature, to go with the flow and nurtures them to find their interest and find a vocation for themselves. All taught at “Namma Bhoomi”, some children decide not to speak, some scarred for life because of the incidents they experienced, some bewildered and carry on as if nothing happened. Each child flourishes under the healing touch of Damu, Nandanachechi and the many caregivers of Namma Bhoomi and CWC. Many find their space in the organization and its many branches such as “Namma Nalanda” and “Namma Angadi”.

My saga with CWC started when Nandanachechi, prompted me to work and be associated with CWC. I had just left Genpact, started by consulting firm “Aadhara HR Solutions” and I did a program for their leadership team during their annual appraisal and that was eye opening. It was a time when Damu’s mother was unwell, so he would come to our camp at “Teerthahalli” once a day to see how we are progressing, what is being done. Damu and Nandanachechi wanted to hand over the reigns of the organization to the next level and do what they were keen on, write, be a part of advocacy, do more work in the field. Damu started by initiating the conversations of teams giving feedback to managers on how they managed and worked on their “honnegarika”, their accountabilities through the year. Tables turned in my mind and i was seeing a whole new perspective and a whole new methodology emerge before me. An exercise in accountability as done in the corporate world, boomeranged back because each worker at CWC sees themselves as a leader of the organization. We are not talking MBAs or engineers here but of individuals who have a huge experience from their lives, their situations and are caring, passionate about the cause and in their own way are “nayakarus” or leaders in the work they do everyday. After the week long program, Damu gave me a small sketch and a card with a 4 line poem about me and my work there, in Kannada. COming back to Bangalore, I asked many people in the bus if they could read it for me, but they could not because he wrote in literary Kannada. In short he said that in the work I did, meaning of my name came through, that no wonder I am known as Preeti, love!. I cherish that card, framed and saved.

Damu could cook and cook non vegetarian food even though he was a pure vegetarian. Damodar Acharya, the surname Acharya denoting “one who knows or teaches (right) conduct”. He would cook for a gathering of CWC workers, a 70 strong team, and cook with a relish. One of his sons’ Ramu has taken after his father and is today a hotel management graduate running his won restaurant in Goa.

Damu, a poet, gifted his family and friends with poems written by him about how he sees them and their strengths and describe he does with a flourish. Having completed a full time program in counseling from “Parivartan” in 2011, I wanted Nadanachechi and Damu for my graduation and so I invited them. I could bulldoze Nandanachehi to come not just because she is related but also because we love each other. Damu, I was hoping would attend and I heard a lot of “maybe”,

Damu, a poet, gifted his family and friends with poems written by him about how he sees them and their strengths and describe he does with a flourish. Having completed a full time program in counseling from “Parivartan” in 2011, I wanted Nadanachechi and Damu for my graduation and so I invited them. I could bulldoze Nandanachehi to come not just because she is related but also because we love each other. Damu, I was hoping would attend and I heard a lot of “maybe”, “prayatne madduttene”. Imagine my delight when he was there with Nadanachechi and my mother, Veda, Raja and my cousins.

I was then invited to do a program in counseling for the caregivers at Namma Bhoomi and some from Namma Nalanda. This meant 1 week every month at Namma Bhoomi in Kundapura, what bliss!! I learnt to speak Kannada, broken but passable and used a lot of Malayalam words and we did the training. I have made some good friends for life there, Ratnakka, Padakka, Joshigaru, Kripa, Jayanti, the accounts Shivu and the civil engineer Shivu……all because they believed in the cause that Damu started, all because they loved him, the children and the idea of empowerment of working children! The children run around, they are taught to farm, to look after animals, milk cows, cook and stitch, carpentry. A counselor visits periodically, children are taken for health check up to Manipal for major physical and mental health problems, …..a very busy day, long hours, a small pay…..nothing deters them. An organization built on love, respect for each other, no intimidations,……….there is no other like this, Damu.

Damu, you gave us CWC, you gave me healing, you gave me hope, your gave me a purpose. I continue to admire you, in small things I see around me I remember you. I promise you that I will continue to be associated with CWC and will be back to work at Namma Bhoomi! Your team at CWC will take ahead you and what you created while you take a well deserved rest.