I read a quotation recently and it has become one of my favourites. “Failure means delay…not defeat.” Our project at Yepre has been facing a lot of setbacks recently. And we have still not started work on the toilet. There have been two main factors for this; the internal and personal struggles of Mr. Bhalke and me. Due to this, we both have not been able to contribute the kind of time we should have. But, as the quote says, failure is delay, not defeat. What we should have achieved by end of June, we have completed by the end of August.

We embarked on a project to provide notebooks and stationery to all children, and textbooks, uniforms to a selected set of needy, economically challenged children.  We were able to distribute the notebooks on the 1st of August. Mr. Bhalke and the school authorities organised a small function in which they gifted the notebooks and stationery items. You can see some of the pictures of this function here.

The next thing we wanted to achieve was to provide for the uniforms, bags, shoes et al; the complete set for selected students. This took a long time as we first had to organise the funds, which I had, but did not get the time to deposit/transfer, then when the funds reached the trust account, he fell ill. Once he recuperated, on the 15th of August, he took the opportunity of Independence Day celebrations and gifted the uniforms to the children. You can see the children standing with the gifted uniforms.

I normally try to go to Pune at least once in two months. Since March I was not been able to go to Pune and that was nagging me. Last week, me and my daughter had been for a short weekend holiday to Panchgani and on our way back, took the opportunity and stopped at the Yepre school yesterday i.e on the 30th of August. We met all the students and teachers. The English medium has a blue uniform and the Marathi medium has a maroon uniform. The teachers looked happy. They mentioned about the pending construction of the toilet to which I (sheepishly) replied that we will do the needful as soon as possible. In the pictures, you can also see some of the tiny tots who form part of the play-school or 'balwadi'. One of the kids was inconsolably crying. I tried to capture his expression. The funny thing was that as soon as I took the camera near him to take a picture, he stopped crying. You can also see my daughter Natasha in some of the pictures here.

When we left the school, we were very happy. I thought to myself, it is so true…delay is never defeat.