Sunflowers In The Dark Alley

But giving away his money can be as much hard work as making it, as Kohli discovered last year when he started looking for ways to rid himself of a small but sizeable portion of his fortune. "I didn’t want to just donate it to some organisation or even the government," he recalls. "I wanted the money to make a difference to society." Being new to the business of social work, Kohli decided to tackle it in the same way he made his fortune: start out from scratch. A balwadi in a slum colony would be a good beginning, he felt, where he could provide a few poor children with a wholesome meal, healthy environment and some motivation to enrol into school when they were old enough.

Slow and steady, Kohli told himself, when he started out last January, setting aside Rs 67,000 a month for a teacher, helper, uniforms, mid-day meal and a part-time doctor for 30-40 children in Mehramnagar near Delhi airport. But the parents’ demand and Kohli’s empire-building instincts soon got the better of him. Within a month, there were 21 running balwadis and by last year, a chain of 50, which Kohli plans to expand to 100 this year.

Kohli’s international business skills, especially his insistence on high quality at lowest price, are paying off already. Children who spent hours roaming the sludgy streets of the basti while their parents were at work are now transformed: proudly dressed in their free "uniform"—maroon sweater and shorts or skirt, carefully polished black shoes and socks, hair well-oiled and combed, slate in hand, happy chanting nursery rhymes and alphabets that the teachers (volunteers from the slum) instil in them. But these are no ordinary creches to merely provide poor children with a hot meal. They are opening doors to a whole new future for slum children.

As peanut-seller Mohammed Akram from the Brar Square basti in Naraina points out, "Before my youngest girl Sannu joined the balwadi, I could never hope to provide her quality education. But Sannu is doing so well here that I want to enrol her in a public school no matter what it costs." Several of the graduates from Kohli’s balwadis have already joined private schools, sailing through the pre-admission tests with an ease that is giving new hope to government-run schools in the neighbourhood. "Our balwadis provide a headstart to the children so that when they join primary school they not only have an incentive not to drop off but also stay ahead of the school curriculum," explains a teacher, Komal, a high school graduate. "These children will never have to resort to tuitions like I had to."

Kohli’s creches are also giving the government-run anganwadis a run for their money. What’s more, as word about Kohli’s balwadis is beginning to spread, slum-dwellers are inviting Kohli to open shop in their neighbourhood. "We insist everyone pays a fee, even if it is only Rs 15 a month. This way, parents feel they have claims over the balwadis—they ring us up and complain if the teacher doesn’t come or the mid-day meal isn’t OK."

But for Kohli, the real payoff is when he sees the children changing before his eyes. "At first, they couldn’t even look me in the eye, they were so shy. But look at them now, they can take on anyone in the world."

Nanak Kohli can be contacted at: A10/6, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi-110057. Tel: 011- 51663016-17