sey042

One of the nicest things in my experience of travelling around   India, is going on the train. I remember a last minute 1998 trip from Amritsar (where I had   gone to see the Sikh's holiest Golden Temple) to Delhi, where I just assumed I could hop on the first class carriage after standing in the "Ladies Only" line. It was around 5 a.m. that crisp Spring morning when I made my way to the train station, after having spent the night in the Temple's   open air veranda known as the Ladies Quarters, and having had a marriage proposal by a self-appointed tour guide who had led me around the Temple grounds (having clued into my NRI and foreign citizen status). My new Lonely Planet   guidebook had neglected to mention that single women were not allowed to rent a room! But it was a nice experience even if I did not get much sleep for fear I would oversleep the next morning – they did not do wake-up calls on the veranda.     I was surprised to find that they were one carria...

For some reason, there appear to be a huge number of hospitals and Drs here in Jalandhar which is convenient. When I first met Sofi, she was small for her age and in the bottom 10th percentile at 5-6 kgs when 11 months old. Because there are so many unknown and varied reasons for kids arriving here, their medical conditions are unknown, but it is common for them to have some type of illness.  When I arrived, another baby, Vinakshi, who was just a few months old, had recently arrived with a severe and chronic chest infection. Sofi caught it. It was about 2 months of constant Dr visits and medications, antibiotics, supplements, and injections before Sofi was rid of this. It was a real worry for me. Soon after that, she caught a viral eye infection. When Sofi was found, her left eye was swollen shut and she again had problems in that eye. Again, thanks to the good Drs here, she was on 4 different types of eye drops for about 6 weeks and this too cleared up. But then it seemed she had conj...

I know you all must be curious about the ashram and wondering who all lives there and what it is like. I have been visiting almost daily for 4 & 1/2 months now so I feel pretty comfortable there. There are in the region of 25-30 kids ranging from a few days to teenagers, a handful in their 20's, and some older ladies. There are 2 little boys otherwise it's all feminine estrogen environment. Nari Niketan is located in the city of Jalandhar in the state of Punjab, India. It was opened in 1955 and I understand it was started to help the dislocated widows and children of Partition. Being close to the border of Pakistan, I understand there used to be alot of residents and many people have been helped over the 55 years it has been open. The international adoption license was finally obtained in March 2009, so it is only recently that the children being adopted are going abroad. There have been many children adopted within India over the years. Nari Niketan is a good ashram where ...

Sofi usually wakes up around 2 in the morning, thirsty and hungry. She will drink water and milk and then nod off back to sleep. It's around 7 in the morning that she is up for more milk, breakfast and playtime. She is pretty content to play in the baby's room, often just sitting in her crib singing or babbling away in her own language.  By 9 or 10 she is usually ready for a morning nap lasting an hour or two.  Then around noon it's lunchtime. Every day at the ashram they eat rice, daal and yoghurt, so that's what Sofi has. If I am there, I will usually take her down to the dining hall so she can play with the other children - who have come back from the school which is just next door.  After lunch we play. We wander around the ashram, playing with the little children who don't go back to school after lunch.  By 2 all the kids are done with school, so there are lots of people for Sofi to play with. Initially she was not so eager to play with all the kids, and she pr...