Blue Notes

The Blue Note Music (Western Music) school is situated in Vasant Kunj. Many of the faculty's children learn music from this school. Therefore, it was entirely appropriate that the Faculty club hosted the annual day function of Blue Note Music School. The function was dedicated to the cause of the malnourished children.
UNICEF is focusing on India for we have the largest number of malnourished children in the world. One in three child in India is malnourished. This number is not surprising given the poverty. What nourishment can we talk when in many rural areas/urban slums children eat possibly a roti with salt or chilli? The problem is compounded because the mother too is undernourished and anemic. It is a vicious has the malnourished children grow up into malnourished adult, giving birth to halnourished children.
The mid-day meal scheme, which was launched by MGR in Tamilnadu was scoffed initially but in retrospect is a brilliant scheme. If it was implemented properly. In most of the schools at least in UP the menu is kichidi, more kichidi, and some more kichidi if the provisions arrive in time. The teachers have the additional responsibility of cooking the mid-day meal. So either the teaching or the meal can be done, in most cases neither is done. On the other hand both Karnataka and Rajasthan have implemented Akshay Patra scheme.
Renuka Choudary meantime had the brilliant idea of giving packaged food to the children. In most cases this constituted vitamin enriched biscuits- a boon to the biscuit industry no doubt- but this is not sufficient for the children. The prepackaged food might relieve the teacher, might even provide uniform quality food to the children but it is not going to provide all the nutrition the child needs. I think for the time being the PM has intervened and has requested this scheme to be put on back burner.
Coming back to the concert- I went because Sohail, Sneha's son, had told me that he would be singing. The only thing I would say is that I could have been in America for all practical purposes. Oh, a final note-the attitude of the participants was amazing. They extruded a kind of aggressiveness that bothered me. The only kid who did not extrude this attitude was Sohail who looked appavi (I do not know how to translate this Tamil word) and lost in the milieu.