purwant's blog: The other side of the story…

What does it look like?

1. Weekend well spent?
2. Lush green Maharashtra countryside?
3. Bunch of software people having a blast?
4. Rented vehicles, Company umbrellas (!), and oh of course that group photo to tag faces on Orkut and Facebook.

Well yes, the answer is - “all of the above”. We* had fun, plus, it is just 60** KMs away from Pune! Want to be there next weekend? Of course you do!

But observe closely, do you see a fence? And the mountain peak behind it? And now if I tell you that fence surrounds a school? “Interesting”, you might say, well, then I’d tell you that every single day about a hundred of ten to fourteen year olds walk past those mountains to reach their school, yes, that is every single day.

When speaking about their challenges and what do they need, Mr. Phadtare, (one of the only four teachers there) tells, “ I let them go at 4 p.m. these days since some of them have really long walks back home and besides they have to work after reaching there, about 50% of them do not have electricity at home. The school is of course free, except for the examination fees. But even the stationary and the school uniform are hard to come by since they come from extremely destitute class of the society. My students are very talented they study hard and recently they did win most of the sport championships held at Taluka level, but we think it’d be nice to have a common sport uniform, just a T-shirt and shorts, you can get a common size, because as you see these kids are all of almost same size really, they eat the same rice and bhakri and have same long walks every day”.

He continues, “well, but stationary and a bit of exposure to the outside world is their immediate need, They are so happy to receive from you all, the general knowledge sessions, greeting card creation sessions and of course the classes some of you have conducted to simplify Math and English, will help them academically as well, they are such a great value ad and motivate my students immensely”, I liked the way he addressed them as “my students” and the sense of ownership behind the way he’d say it was very moving.

Upon asking why there are good number of girls in the 8th Standard, still less in 9th standard and hardly any in 10th their headmaster adds, “well, they marry them off by 9th or discontinue their education all together to put them to household work, even with boys, since there is no college nearby, many of them opt to help the family in whichever way possible”.

“Every family has one person working in hotel in nearby places to earn daily bread” Mr. Phadtare chips in, “my students understand the importance of education, they really do, for such a small age, they put in way too much effort even to attend it daily, for city people it’s once a month or once an year holiday thing, but these kids daily walk through the jungle they encounter snakes and everything, one of my students, a girl used to travel 9.5 kilometers one side just to be here”.

We visited three schools that day and everywhere the story is more or less similar. Poverty is driving them away from education, and then the lack of education in turn drives them back to suffering. For some, the school is a place they reach after crossing a mountain, a river, for some it is the 2 room facility additionally extended to a nearby temple to make room for the surge of enthusiastic kids driven by single aim “they want to study, they want to break that cycle”, and for the remaining it is the outcome of near divine efforts of their teachers.

The School, and just behind, yes, another peak to overcome to reach here