The wonderful women of Ramana’s Garden

A new video by Pankaja Brooke, taken at Prabhavati Dwabha’s children’s home and school in Rishikesh. Update: link to petition.

Women of Ramana's from Pankaja Brooke on Vimeo.

Last spring, while visiting India and the Himalayas, Pankaja could not resist paying a visit to Ramana’s Garden, the school and orphanage (plus organic café) that Prabhavati Dwabha set up in Rishikesh almost 30 years ago. While there she enjoyed reconnecting with some of the children she had seen growing up as she visited and filmed the place over the years.

The lovely girls in this film, Mandi, Ankita and Krishna, all grew up in Ramana’s Garden and Mandi’s mum Chanda is the main cook, while some of the older kids are bringing their skills and experience to help run the place. It’s wonderful to watch their playfulness and joy, their intelligence, entrepreneurship and self-esteem. So carefree, articulate and full of energy.

One of them, Ankita, is married to Gagan, who was born at Ramana’s. Instead of leaving after his education was finished, Gagan preferred to remain at the orphanage and help Dwabha run the place. Many of the first to arrive were Nepalis, like his parents, escaping from the Maoist rebels. The children were often sent into prostitution or made into child soldiers.

“Veer, for instance, another Nepali boy, had escaped with his father and his two brothers. They walked for five days to reach a bus that would take them out of Nepal into India. He has now become a wonderful yoga teacher. I am also making a little film about him,” says Pankaja.

Ramana’s Garden shelters about 75 children and provides schooling to 300 from the poorest local children. Pankaja caught Dwabha saying in the video below: “Without education you do not know your rights and you don’t know how to fight for them.”

Education trailer from Pankaja Brooke on Vimeo.

And a fight is indeed in the cards, as the survival of the place is in jeopardy. In the video you can hear “the jackhammers hammering away,” overpowering anything that is being said in the classroom and how “the children have to study with rubble raining down on their heads.” It’s the neighbour demolishing his hotel, possibly to expand and build a new, larger hotel onto the school’s land. The school, being built right of the banks of the Ganges, makes its land particularly desirable.

“Already on my previous visit, in 2019, I was shocked by the amount of building that was going on, without any sort of plan or organisation. This time, it’s completely insane! There are now so many Indian tourists and every scrap of land is being built on with huge hotels… endless amount of hotels. And the Ganges is full of adventure rafts. Looking down over the river there were something like 30 rafts full of people, coming down from the rapids further upstream.”

Dwabha had originally set up the orphanage in a place called Phool Chatti further upstream, until – about 25 years ago – some people got together and helped her to buy the land in Rishikesh. However, they eventually tried to cheat her out of it. The knocking down of the hotel is one of the messages.

“To end on a positive note, I just want to say how much I enjoyed my week’s stay at Ramana’s Garden also this year. I was lucky to find Dwabha there in person and I was able to spend some time with her. What a lady! And what wonderful girls and women, and boys, have come out, and I hope will keep coming out, from this project!”

As told to Punya

Update on the situation, 13 August 2023

Yesterday their neighbour, who is illegally constructing a big hotel next door, broke their UKG classroom cum library roof which resulted in the rain water pouring into the classroom and damaging many of the books! The children were devastated and tried to save as many books as they could. Luckily none of the kids were hurt. You can sign the petition here: www.change.org