Thank god for hair dryers. As I began to blow-dry the crotch of my jeans, dampened by cheap beer and a faulty couch, in a room full of uber-hip lesbian artists smoking cigarettes and dancing to Lady Gaga, I couldn't help but think about the contrast to the night prior. In my final night in Aberdeen, Rowan, her boypal, sweet little Avery and I enjoyed an actually overwhelmingly competitive game of playdough chirades and an early bedtime. Both experiences definitely had there merits: While I enjoyed the spirits and dancing in London, a couple hours spent chasing buses at 1am made me long for the early bedtimes in Aberdeen. Not to mention the consistent dryness of my trousers.
So I am in London now staying on the couch of my girlfriend's best friends brother, Than, who is in art school at London and has slowly become one of my favorite people on earth. Mildly flamboyant, super intelligent, and utterly lovable, sigh… Inspired by the mighty Than I have decided to adopt his nomenclature in describing the laurels of this amazing city; things joy/things not joy. Beautiful.
Here we go:
Things that are London joy:
- A sneaky collusion of all of Chad's joys!
My first day, I decided to romp around Brick Lane in East End. Stepping out of the Tube, I was transported into this weird 18th century Bangladeshi neighborhood. South asian geekout. check
Further down the lane, South Asia gives way to Hipster Haven and I stumbled upon this huge and amazing vintage clothes weekend market. Hip clothes shopping. check.
Adjacent to the market was a custom bike frame shop where I spent an hour gabbing about bikes and Portland to a very friendly tech. Bike geek out. check.
THEN, I grabbed a beer and sat down on the footpath to watch the parade of beautiful hip people seething and sauntering through the crowded streets. Public drinking. check.
THEN, I wandered through Rough Trade East, one of the best record stores that I have been to since Amoeba in SF. Music geek out. check.
THEN, I had THE BEST cup of coffee in my life prepared by the 2009 Swedish Barista champion. World class coffee, check.
THEN, I rounded out my day with an amazing photographic exhibit of 150 years of South Asian exhibits. South Asian Art geekout. check.
A joy explosion in the very first day.
- Good Ol' British History.
Yesterday, we went to Than's dashing and debonair boyfriend's presentation at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Jordan whole presence oozes of academia, from the tweed jacket, dry wit, to his wide array of collared shirts and blazers and endless informative interjections. I absolutely love it. After the talk, which made the forty or so aristocratic housewives in attendance audibly swoon, Jordan took me on a walking tour of old London, the bits and pieces that I thought too pedestrian and tourist-y for my refined traveling palate. But checking out those spots with a very excited 18th century Art Historian made his kind of sightseeing actually really fun. I saw all the hits: St. Paul's Cathedral, Houses of Parliament, Buckinham Palace, St. James Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalger Square. You name it, a scholar told me the significance of it. Awesome.
Not London Joy:
- Lack of Grid System.
Damn those 10th century planners who did not have the foresight of a urban grid system. Any place I want to go to, I have to allot at least an hour and half of being hopelessly lost in these unintuitive, narrow roads. I bought a map yesterday and have found that it has only been of marginal help.
- That Chad Robertson doesn't live there. Oh how grand that would be!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Scotland's Charms
Well, I should be in India right now, right? So then why has my great blog resurrection yielded my first posting from a cozy pub in the northern coast of Scotland? Well, you have my good friend, Rowan, to blame for this. Alternative pedagogy and cutie kiddies will have to wait. For now, just charming coastal towns, old world charm, and sweet, sweet cask ales. Not too shabby.
I studied with Rowan at the University of Washington during my Hindi days and, brilliant and impressive as she is, has taken a fabulous three year research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen. I have really wanted to see Rowan for a while, so I used a screening of my documentary film as an excuse for a two week romp around the British Isles. The attendance for today's screening was modest, and thankfully so, due to so major technical malfunctions. By the end of the screening, that modest crowd was watching the film from my laptop. BUT, the crowd was pretty into the film providing some interesting Q & A.
But, like I said the real reason for coming was to spend some quality time with Rowan and her brilliant and sassy 5th daughter, Avery, who has been showing me around the forest by their apartment giving me a rigorous werewolf training. She is ridiculously adorable; outside the eye of her mother, she will flip into her Scottish accent which she uses with schoolfriends. Despite only being here for about 7 months, her accent is near flawless. Super cute.
First observation about the UK: It is OLD. When I see a building from the late 18th century in America I about faint. Here that's nothing. Take for example, Rowan's apartment, it is a converted army barrack built 150 years ago, pocked by Nazi blitzkriegs during World War II. (other things that makes Rowan's place ridiculous: it is directly adjacent to a immaculate golf course that hosted the Women's British Open a couple weeks back AND is about a ten minute walk to the sandy North Sea beaches). Rowan's office is in a tenth century building over looking the first campus building, a beautiful 6th century church. In fact, wandering around the narrow, cobbled paths of University of Aberdeen feels like being transporting back to a 10th century town. Ridiculous.
Second Observation: Scotland is overwhelming charming, the kind of charming that makes you want to suspend all of your ambitions, purchase a cottage out in the country and live out the rest of your life herding sheep and eating pub lunches. Overly romantic? Perhaps, but you try driving through the pastoral land budding up to breathtaking craggy cliffs, strewn with cobbled cottages and the ruins of 14th century castles. See what that will do to you!
Rowan has been the most gracious host, finishing up her work early to show me around. Yesterday we went to Stonehaven, a quant, coastal town a short walk from Dunnottar, a gorgeous abandoned castle. The stroll was perfect: we snaked along the coastal wheatfields, crisp blue skies and brilliant sun shining down upon the farmers work and the endless North Sea. The Dunnotar fort stood atop of a prominent peninsula, sides battered into interesting and beautiful cliffs from years of abuse for the sea. Unfortunately, the castle was closed, so we snuck around the back side to see if we would be able to breach the high walls like the Jacobbites had done a couple hundreds of years ago. We found a vulnerable spot, scaling a quite sketchy face, but as we climbed higher, the fall became more dramatic. But the more dramatic the climb became, the more broken beer bottles we found. Eventually we decided that we would leave the contemporary invasions to young, fearless, and drunken Scots. No need for an ER visit at the beginning of my trip. Instead we decided to catch up on the beautiful stony beaches that lay below.
After our walk, we decided to head to the pub for a fish supper and a pint. It is probably a good thing that I don't live in Scotland for I would spend all of my time in pub: 12 beers on tap, 8 on cask, darkly lit with cozy fire place, gregarious, portly barkeeps who bring out your meals revealing their 'chip stealing tendencies.' Perfect. Oh, another very important observation. Fish and chips in America are a sham. In the UK, you get a whole fillet of white fish, deep fried perfection; the forearm sized piece of fish can barely fit on the dish. Needless to say, after devouring my plate, as well as a couple pints of delicious cask beer, I was in dire need of a nap.
Observation 3: British food isn't that shabby! I had definite preconceptions of bland British food, but am finding the local cuisine quite tasty. Rowan has been an amazing navigator, cooking us delicious meals nightly. Favourites thus far include steak pie and toads in a hole (worshire pudding with haggis and blood pudding sausages (!)).
Sipping my pint here in the pub right now, it's dawned on me that it is going to be ridiculously hard to leave Scotland, definitely my favourite spot that I have been outside of India. Excited to explore a bit more before heading down to London.
I studied with Rowan at the University of Washington during my Hindi days and, brilliant and impressive as she is, has taken a fabulous three year research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen. I have really wanted to see Rowan for a while, so I used a screening of my documentary film as an excuse for a two week romp around the British Isles. The attendance for today's screening was modest, and thankfully so, due to so major technical malfunctions. By the end of the screening, that modest crowd was watching the film from my laptop. BUT, the crowd was pretty into the film providing some interesting Q & A.
But, like I said the real reason for coming was to spend some quality time with Rowan and her brilliant and sassy 5th daughter, Avery, who has been showing me around the forest by their apartment giving me a rigorous werewolf training. She is ridiculously adorable; outside the eye of her mother, she will flip into her Scottish accent which she uses with schoolfriends. Despite only being here for about 7 months, her accent is near flawless. Super cute.
First observation about the UK: It is OLD. When I see a building from the late 18th century in America I about faint. Here that's nothing. Take for example, Rowan's apartment, it is a converted army barrack built 150 years ago, pocked by Nazi blitzkriegs during World War II. (other things that makes Rowan's place ridiculous: it is directly adjacent to a immaculate golf course that hosted the Women's British Open a couple weeks back AND is about a ten minute walk to the sandy North Sea beaches). Rowan's office is in a tenth century building over looking the first campus building, a beautiful 6th century church. In fact, wandering around the narrow, cobbled paths of University of Aberdeen feels like being transporting back to a 10th century town. Ridiculous.
Second Observation: Scotland is overwhelming charming, the kind of charming that makes you want to suspend all of your ambitions, purchase a cottage out in the country and live out the rest of your life herding sheep and eating pub lunches. Overly romantic? Perhaps, but you try driving through the pastoral land budding up to breathtaking craggy cliffs, strewn with cobbled cottages and the ruins of 14th century castles. See what that will do to you!
Rowan has been the most gracious host, finishing up her work early to show me around. Yesterday we went to Stonehaven, a quant, coastal town a short walk from Dunnottar, a gorgeous abandoned castle. The stroll was perfect: we snaked along the coastal wheatfields, crisp blue skies and brilliant sun shining down upon the farmers work and the endless North Sea. The Dunnotar fort stood atop of a prominent peninsula, sides battered into interesting and beautiful cliffs from years of abuse for the sea. Unfortunately, the castle was closed, so we snuck around the back side to see if we would be able to breach the high walls like the Jacobbites had done a couple hundreds of years ago. We found a vulnerable spot, scaling a quite sketchy face, but as we climbed higher, the fall became more dramatic. But the more dramatic the climb became, the more broken beer bottles we found. Eventually we decided that we would leave the contemporary invasions to young, fearless, and drunken Scots. No need for an ER visit at the beginning of my trip. Instead we decided to catch up on the beautiful stony beaches that lay below.
After our walk, we decided to head to the pub for a fish supper and a pint. It is probably a good thing that I don't live in Scotland for I would spend all of my time in pub: 12 beers on tap, 8 on cask, darkly lit with cozy fire place, gregarious, portly barkeeps who bring out your meals revealing their 'chip stealing tendencies.' Perfect. Oh, another very important observation. Fish and chips in America are a sham. In the UK, you get a whole fillet of white fish, deep fried perfection; the forearm sized piece of fish can barely fit on the dish. Needless to say, after devouring my plate, as well as a couple pints of delicious cask beer, I was in dire need of a nap.
Observation 3: British food isn't that shabby! I had definite preconceptions of bland British food, but am finding the local cuisine quite tasty. Rowan has been an amazing navigator, cooking us delicious meals nightly. Favourites thus far include steak pie and toads in a hole (worshire pudding with haggis and blood pudding sausages (!)).
Sipping my pint here in the pub right now, it's dawned on me that it is going to be ridiculously hard to leave Scotland, definitely my favourite spot that I have been outside of India. Excited to explore a bit more before heading down to London.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Blog Revived!
Hello All,
Just letting the word out that I am going to revive my long deceased blog to document my upcoming trip to the UK and return to my ashram in the Indian Himalayas. I am a bit busy preparing for my departure on Monday but more to come soon.
C.
Just letting the word out that I am going to revive my long deceased blog to document my upcoming trip to the UK and return to my ashram in the Indian Himalayas. I am a bit busy preparing for my departure on Monday but more to come soon.
C.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Chad's Hillstation/Ashram/Village/Vipassana Birthday Bonanza.
School's closed. Teachers are leaving. It is very sad looking at the empty playground and listening to the silent sounds of the ashram. The early monsoon is bringing back dreary memories of Washington winter depression. So, now the Chad that wanted no more than to stay in the ashram forever is gone for the moment: I am pretty content with my travel plans for the next month.
So I set out to Kausani with one of the ashramites, Ruchi. I tried to keep count of the times that Ruchi vommited on our winding, excessively long (16 hours via 3 different shared taxis and two buses) trip through the Himalayas; I lost count at twenty, the poor thing.
But we made it to Laksmi ashram an all girl boarding school founded by a British disciple of Gandhi. The school is essential a British hill station bungalow set on an expansive plot of vegetable fields, flower gardens, cow sheds and the like, completely surrounded by untouched pine forests. The school is basically a child's haven for about 60 girls ranging from 1stgrade to 12th. They are taught in the school and also responsible for rearing the cows, farming collecting wood, etc for the ashram. Ruchi parted after the first night, but I stayed for a couple more days which actually coincided with my birthday. The beautiful ashram povided me definitely with one of the most memorable and special birthdays to date.
So basically I found out that it is not just the children in our ashram that like me, apparently my likeability with children is pan-Uttarakhand. Within probably a half hour they were at complete ease around me as I was with them. The first morning, I joined about 20 girls to gather firewood in the forest, well I didn't really have a choice, some cuties, Pooja and Diksha grabbed my hands and led me to the forest, giving me a rope to tie the wood that I would collect. Diksha was adorable, she could not pronounce my name correctly, it came out 'child' so she was leading me through the forest saying, 'come Child, come Child.' The forest was covered with fallen pine needles, so it was pretty treacherous, but the paths that Diksha chose were ones where she slid down on her side, a big load of sticks on her shoulder. I basically just fell down these paths sending sticks everywhere, bloodying my hands and delighting of all of the girls watching me from down below. We then tied our stash into about twenty pound stacks which we then carried back to the ashram. The girls were also delighted to see the awkward whitey carrying the heavy load on his head. After we got back, it was wool spinning time, an artifact of the Gandhi influence on the ashram. It was really difficult for me and one of the girls basically spun most of my wool stack, but gave me encouragement whenever I got it a strand right. During this time, they found out that I knew how to sing some of the songs of our school. My mentor, Anand ji, has written over 40 songs that the children sing daily in the assembly, and he had actually come to Laksmi Ashram and taught them a few songs. He had also given them a song book of his songs which they shoved in front of me telling me to sing them. So basically I had to sing two or three songs, completely in Hindi for about 80 people. Pretty embarrassing but they seemed to enjoy it.
After that I took a break from the ashram and kiddies to check out Anasakti ashram, where Gandhi has stayed and written the book where the ashram got its name. The ashram is at one of the highest points of Kausani where I saw the most spectacular view of Himalayas that I have ever seen.
Then it was back to the ashram where I spent the afternoon climbing trees in the cool forest, picking kaphal, this moutain fruit that is like a raspberry cherry with the girls. In all honestly I must have eaten about 400 of these damn delicious berries; the girls folded their salwaars making little pockets in the front and were constantly forcing berries from their stash down my throaght.
As the sun went down, we went back to the ashram for evening prayer. When prayer concluded, one of the teachers asked me to give a presentation in front of all of the girls about my life and 'aims.' I said in my best Hindi, which is still pretty bad, that Lakshmi ashram was a very special place and that I had an amazing time working and playing with the children. I said that in the whole world, Lakshmi Ashram was my second favorite place only after my ashram and that the experience would stay in my heart forever. Then a couple girls stood up and gave speeches filled with hyperboles about how great I was. After all of the nice words, about 15 of the younger girls surrounded me and gave me hugs. They said not to forgot them and their berries when I left and to come back as soon as possible. Break my heart. Best B-Day Ever!!
But I am coming back sooner than they expected. I was invited to a village wedding in Kausani so I will be going back in a couple days. I plan to spend the whole day playing with the kids then go to wedding at night. I can't wait.
I realized just after leaving the ashram that I hadn't spoken a word of English the whole time I was there and could fully communicate with the girls, there was very little lapse in understanding. Quite honestly, the last year of rigorous Hindi studies paid of fully for the experience I had in being able to talk with the girls teachers in the ashram.
And more days of only Hindi speaking in sight. I will be staying with two friends that know almost no English in their village with their parents who I assume are in the same position. Here is a schedule of the rest of my time here.
Friend's village visits:
Ashramites Ruchi and Vimla are from villages in Kumoan. Uttarakhand is roughly split into two regions based on language and ethnicity: Garhwal and Kumaon. While I have lived and travelled in Garhwal extensively, I know nothing of Kumaon and am looking forward to the ridiculously hospitality I am about to receive.
Almora/Nainital:
These are two famous hillstations of the British Raj. Admittedly, I have a space in my heart of these vestiges of British Colonial rule. I love living in the village, but the American in me also like to kick back with a beer in an old British clubhouse watching socialites and white collar tourists playing golf or yachting on the lake.
Ashram:
A million miles away, after I am through with my indulgence, it is off to Rishikesh for a retreat with a Swami that I met a couple months back. He is actually Belgium, who has spent considerable time in a Christian monastery, became disillusioned to a certain extent, embraced Hinduism, became a Swami, and now runs an ashram. Although he is Hindu, he holds very inclusive religious views; at the inauguration of the ashram, monks of several faiths were invited to celebrate and chant together, the alter in the meditation room displays statues of the Buddha, Jesus, and Shiva. I draw my religious views from multiple traditions and I am excited to sit down with him a while and live in their community.
Vipassana:
Vipassana is a form of Buddhist meditation, typically associated with Hiyana buddhism practices in SE asia, although it is practiced by many regardless of faith. I am going to participate in a ten day silent meditation retreat in Dehradun. Ten days in complete silents, no outside stimulus in the forms of books, pencils, television, etc. and 12+ hours of meditation might sound a little intimidating, but I feel prepared enough for it. My meditation has been stagnating as of late and hopefully this will give me a boost; when I meditate in my ashram, I always have something to look forward, my bed, the day's work, the children, a book, but there it will just be me and my thoughts. I also have a lot to figure out about what I am going to do when I get back, so the reflection I believe will be helpful.
Then back to the empty ashram.
Then off to Corbett National Park, a famous tiger reserve to meet up with the rest of the fellows. Luckily it is located in Uttarakhand, so I can swoop back up to the ashram for another couple of weeks with the kiddies and friends, then it is back to states. My plane ticket is for the 23rd of July. Gawd, this year has flown by.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
The New Recruits
Today, some of the teachers and I set out on a PR and recruiting mission to find some more students for next year's enrollment. We set our sites on Ghoghas, a village of about forty Muslim families very near to the school. We only have one student from the village which is a terribly low number for the village's close proximity.
The village was really strange. As in most areas in the mountains, there is a strong current of out migration by the male members of the village. No different in Goghas, but the interesting part about this town is that the Muslim status of the men give them a easy pass into jobs in the Near East (mostly Dubai, Iraq, Iran). The international stamp on this village is seen through have every man that you encounter (rare except if back on vacation) speaks impeccable English. This differs considerably from the Hindu villages that I have been to where it is just Garhwali and Hindi. In any case, these jobs are very lucrative which can be seen in the constructions of their homes. The composition of most of the Hindu villages around here are of the traditional (beautiful) stone homes with slate roofs. A sign of affluence in the village is the standard brick/cement monstrosities that predominate popular Indian architecture. With remittances flowing in, almost all of the homes were exactly of this boring ebb. There were maybe two traditional houses that I saw.
To exemplify this strangeness, take the case of Khadir. We meet Khadir actually in a traditional mountain house on the porch with his father, an elderly man completely in Muslim garb, kurta pajama, white cap, long beard, red checkered scarf. His father was smoking a probably fifty year old hookah, heated with wood coals, sitting on a haystack right next to his water buffalo in his courtyard. Pretty traditional, right? Khadir on the other hand, was was wearing Levis, a tight army shirt, gelled hair, and cologne so strong that we could smell him two houses away. The moment that the first word left his mouth ('man'), I knew that he had a lot of American friends. Every other word was 'man' or 'dude,' flavored with a 'know what I mean?' here and there. Khadir actually is a baker working for a Near East company, providing services to American troops in Iraq. Since he can't leave the army compound for the sake of not getting killed, he is dependent on the troops for friendship and has befriend many Americans, who gave him the new vocabulary, the new shirt, and presumably awkward, unbefitting strut that he tried to pull of. Khadir was great though, very kind and gentle. He was really impressed by the school and took us to many of the homes. By the last home that we visited, Khadir was actually doing all of the convincing to the families.
But we were able to recruit six students from this village. We picked up another two beautiful children from a family living slightly above Ghoghas. The exciting part of this recruitment is that us teachers had barely any part in it. One critique of the school has been that we do not have enough contact with the families of our students, which we couldn't deny a year ago. During the early years of our school, the parents really couldn't understand what we were trying to do and because of this, made them fearful. Many parents took out their children out of the school (enrollment was about 250 about four years ago, it is about 80 now). But since my arrival, we have been trying to make a concerted effort to bring in the parents to their child's education. We weren't sure how our parents have been perceiving our unique pedagogy, but through village visits recently, we have found that many families are quite pleased with our teaching methods and strong allies. Therefore, the have included the parents of our children into the recruitment process. We took four parents along with us to Ghoghas and they were amazing. They described the school, defended critiques, and ultimately persuaded parents to send the children. It was beautiful to see the turn around. It was also beautiful seeing these parents, all women, eloquently navigate the treacherous paths to the remote homes of perspective students. I have noticed that typically when an Indian woman leaves the house, even to do mundane things like shopping or traveling, she will look her best. These women were dressed in beautiful new saris and their finest jewelry, traversing rocky, steep, dense paths; paths that even my outdoorsy friends would wear hiking boots are at least shoes to travel on, these women were wearing flipflops. Amazing.
The content of the new students really pleases me as well. Right now we only have two or three Muslims in the school. Six of the new students are Muslim. Also the two Hindu children come from Harijan or untouchable background. Don't be fooled by the imposed name; all of the untouchables in our school are the cutest children and thus the most touchable. It was strange interaction, coming to that house. All of the people we were with were from higher castes than the father, so he would not offer of us chai, as for it would pollute the higher castes to receive chai from a Harijan. I was longing for a chai after the long hike; he could have at least offer the other Harijan, myself (those outside of the Hindu faith and do not have a caste are also untouchables) some chai. Actually, that is another terrible thing about India is that foreigners technically are untouchables, yet it has been my experience that I get unnecessarily exulted almost everywhere I go; people offer me chai, sweets, friendship, all sorts of things. But for many they will treat the untouchable down the street as if they were a feral dog.
This caste discrimination used to be apparent in our school, some of the students taken out of the school in the beginning because we allowed untouchables into our classrooms. But after four years of the intervention, caste has melted away. One day, I asked a friend about the caste of some children during recess. As he rattled them off I was surprised to see that almost for every Harijan that he pointed to was playing with a Brahmin, the highest caste. In terms of religion, the Hindu/Muslim divide isn't very big in our village. It is a problem in the cities where Muslims are treated like second class citizens and outwardly and inwardly discriminated against daily. But in the village it is a bit more relaxed, and it is so small that everyone kind of needs to get along to make it all work. Plus, in terms of economic status, the Muslims are on a higher rung than most Hindus with their foreign money. You couldn't even point out who is Muslim in our classrooms, they are fully integrated in our school.
Unfortunately, there is a group of students that haven't integrated as well. APV has received a growing number of Nepali children. Because of an open border with India, many Nepalis have settled in Tehri Garhwal, predominately picking up manual labor jobs. Many Aryan Indians in the mountains have met their growing presence with discrimination and xenophobia. For example, schoolteachers are notorious for beating the Nepali far more than other children. Our reputation for equality and non-violent classrooms has been a pull factor behind the influx of new Nepali students. Also, one of the APV teachers is Nepali herself, which is a large source of pride for the local Nepali community. But recently, two parents pulled their children from Kindergarten and third grade citing that the ‘Nepali students were corrupting their children.’ This is obviously an unfounded discriminatory rant. Their is one Nepali girl in the third grade, Sunita, who is probably the best mannered child in the school. If she were to say anything corrupting I would be shocked. As for KG, that is just absolutely preposterous; the children Pintu and Aju are so innocent and sweet. Furthermore, our teachers are responsible, if there was any 'corrupting' behavior, they would not let it continue. But even in the school, children tend to group along ethnic lines, there hasn't been the same integration between the children of different castes and religions. But the younger children seem to mingle a bit more freely, if we can set a precedence at younger ages of tolerance, hopefully it will build on itself. It takes time.
In any case, I am really grateful for our new recruits, I believe that they will be a great addition to our loving community.
The village was really strange. As in most areas in the mountains, there is a strong current of out migration by the male members of the village. No different in Goghas, but the interesting part about this town is that the Muslim status of the men give them a easy pass into jobs in the Near East (mostly Dubai, Iraq, Iran). The international stamp on this village is seen through have every man that you encounter (rare except if back on vacation) speaks impeccable English. This differs considerably from the Hindu villages that I have been to where it is just Garhwali and Hindi. In any case, these jobs are very lucrative which can be seen in the constructions of their homes. The composition of most of the Hindu villages around here are of the traditional (beautiful) stone homes with slate roofs. A sign of affluence in the village is the standard brick/cement monstrosities that predominate popular Indian architecture. With remittances flowing in, almost all of the homes were exactly of this boring ebb. There were maybe two traditional houses that I saw.
To exemplify this strangeness, take the case of Khadir. We meet Khadir actually in a traditional mountain house on the porch with his father, an elderly man completely in Muslim garb, kurta pajama, white cap, long beard, red checkered scarf. His father was smoking a probably fifty year old hookah, heated with wood coals, sitting on a haystack right next to his water buffalo in his courtyard. Pretty traditional, right? Khadir on the other hand, was was wearing Levis, a tight army shirt, gelled hair, and cologne so strong that we could smell him two houses away. The moment that the first word left his mouth ('man'), I knew that he had a lot of American friends. Every other word was 'man' or 'dude,' flavored with a 'know what I mean?' here and there. Khadir actually is a baker working for a Near East company, providing services to American troops in Iraq. Since he can't leave the army compound for the sake of not getting killed, he is dependent on the troops for friendship and has befriend many Americans, who gave him the new vocabulary, the new shirt, and presumably awkward, unbefitting strut that he tried to pull of. Khadir was great though, very kind and gentle. He was really impressed by the school and took us to many of the homes. By the last home that we visited, Khadir was actually doing all of the convincing to the families.
But we were able to recruit six students from this village. We picked up another two beautiful children from a family living slightly above Ghoghas. The exciting part of this recruitment is that us teachers had barely any part in it. One critique of the school has been that we do not have enough contact with the families of our students, which we couldn't deny a year ago. During the early years of our school, the parents really couldn't understand what we were trying to do and because of this, made them fearful. Many parents took out their children out of the school (enrollment was about 250 about four years ago, it is about 80 now). But since my arrival, we have been trying to make a concerted effort to bring in the parents to their child's education. We weren't sure how our parents have been perceiving our unique pedagogy, but through village visits recently, we have found that many families are quite pleased with our teaching methods and strong allies. Therefore, the have included the parents of our children into the recruitment process. We took four parents along with us to Ghoghas and they were amazing. They described the school, defended critiques, and ultimately persuaded parents to send the children. It was beautiful to see the turn around. It was also beautiful seeing these parents, all women, eloquently navigate the treacherous paths to the remote homes of perspective students. I have noticed that typically when an Indian woman leaves the house, even to do mundane things like shopping or traveling, she will look her best. These women were dressed in beautiful new saris and their finest jewelry, traversing rocky, steep, dense paths; paths that even my outdoorsy friends would wear hiking boots are at least shoes to travel on, these women were wearing flipflops. Amazing.
The content of the new students really pleases me as well. Right now we only have two or three Muslims in the school. Six of the new students are Muslim. Also the two Hindu children come from Harijan or untouchable background. Don't be fooled by the imposed name; all of the untouchables in our school are the cutest children and thus the most touchable. It was strange interaction, coming to that house. All of the people we were with were from higher castes than the father, so he would not offer of us chai, as for it would pollute the higher castes to receive chai from a Harijan. I was longing for a chai after the long hike; he could have at least offer the other Harijan, myself (those outside of the Hindu faith and do not have a caste are also untouchables) some chai. Actually, that is another terrible thing about India is that foreigners technically are untouchables, yet it has been my experience that I get unnecessarily exulted almost everywhere I go; people offer me chai, sweets, friendship, all sorts of things. But for many they will treat the untouchable down the street as if they were a feral dog.
This caste discrimination used to be apparent in our school, some of the students taken out of the school in the beginning because we allowed untouchables into our classrooms. But after four years of the intervention, caste has melted away. One day, I asked a friend about the caste of some children during recess. As he rattled them off I was surprised to see that almost for every Harijan that he pointed to was playing with a Brahmin, the highest caste. In terms of religion, the Hindu/Muslim divide isn't very big in our village. It is a problem in the cities where Muslims are treated like second class citizens and outwardly and inwardly discriminated against daily. But in the village it is a bit more relaxed, and it is so small that everyone kind of needs to get along to make it all work. Plus, in terms of economic status, the Muslims are on a higher rung than most Hindus with their foreign money. You couldn't even point out who is Muslim in our classrooms, they are fully integrated in our school.
Unfortunately, there is a group of students that haven't integrated as well. APV has received a growing number of Nepali children. Because of an open border with India, many Nepalis have settled in Tehri Garhwal, predominately picking up manual labor jobs. Many Aryan Indians in the mountains have met their growing presence with discrimination and xenophobia. For example, schoolteachers are notorious for beating the Nepali far more than other children. Our reputation for equality and non-violent classrooms has been a pull factor behind the influx of new Nepali students. Also, one of the APV teachers is Nepali herself, which is a large source of pride for the local Nepali community. But recently, two parents pulled their children from Kindergarten and third grade citing that the ‘Nepali students were corrupting their children.’ This is obviously an unfounded discriminatory rant. Their is one Nepali girl in the third grade, Sunita, who is probably the best mannered child in the school. If she were to say anything corrupting I would be shocked. As for KG, that is just absolutely preposterous; the children Pintu and Aju are so innocent and sweet. Furthermore, our teachers are responsible, if there was any 'corrupting' behavior, they would not let it continue. But even in the school, children tend to group along ethnic lines, there hasn't been the same integration between the children of different castes and religions. But the younger children seem to mingle a bit more freely, if we can set a precedence at younger ages of tolerance, hopefully it will build on itself. It takes time.
In any case, I am really grateful for our new recruits, I believe that they will be a great addition to our loving community.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
catch up
So here is my last two months in shorthand (in no specific order of importance):
- I lost two bulleted lists of the events that happened in the last two months that I wanted to share with you (and yet I endeavor on).
- A moth flew into my shirt while I was sleeping, providing me with what might be the most terrifying wake of my life.
- I wore shorts to bed WITHOUT socks, I made it through the winter, an achievement that I regularly pat myself on the back for.
- A film crew came to the school to shoot a documentary. Two days of non stop filming from 4am to 11pm, quite possibly the most exhausting days of my life.
Side Story Digression: On top of that my 'friend' from Jodhpur that I met two years ago during my internship with Rupayan Sansthan decided to give me my very first stab in the back by a friend. So I had asked for his help on the film not because I need his expertise (we were going to hire a camera, which in India comes with a camera man) or equipment (I have basic editing equipment on my computer), but because I wanted to spend time with him and his family when we were to edit the film. I thought that he was on the same page until the last day he told me that he wanted the copyrights to the raw footage that we shot. This opened up a pretty ugly fight between him and the ashram placing me firmly in the middle. I calmed things a bit by yelling at him, but he ending up taking the raw footage. Now I had spend the next couple weeks plotting about how I could get the film back and wonder why he would try to take advantage of my friendship and an ashram of selfless individuals.
- Friends Jimmy and Ben reaffirmed my trust in humankind by agreeing to help me edit the film in the US and giving me many nice letters.
- Spent 28 hours on a train from Haridwar to Jodhpur 5 of which was spent in standstill. For those have been to Rajasthan, the scenery gives about as much as if you were to stick a couple branches in your childhood sandbox. But I did see at least 100 beautiful peacocks which was nice. I also saw at least ten gazelle looking things and some wild donkeydeer hybrid things (I'm not much for nomenclature, I apologize). The beauty of Rajasthan truly lies in it's people, with the women's colorful dress and abundant jewelry, to the Rajputs with their large turbans and larger mustaches. It lightened my heart to see my favorite sight in India once again, the Rajput, dhoti and all, carrying milk jugs on his 50's style bicycle. Although the beauty of the mountains is breathtaking, nothing beats an old Rajput on milk duty.
- Spent way to long at my friends house editing. He seemed to care more about his projects than helping me with mine, so I eventually left without editing the film as we intended, but I finished a 7 minute trailer (which I hope to post soon on the website). The whole experience was frustrating, but at least I did get to spend some time with his mother who is an absolute sweetheart, and brush up on my Indian copyright laws.
- Next I went to Jaipur where I gave a presentation about the APV school and my experience in India to the study abroad program I did two years ago, at the Minnesotan Studies in International Development (MSID). Quite interesting that the quietest person in class was the only to come back to give a presentation to date, and no less about Hindi, when I had by far the worst Hindi in the group (my inability to pick up the local language was notorious amongst my peers in the program; they deemed me, quite offensively but nevertheless not without a grain of truth, the 'hindi tard.' jerks). But it went well, it was great to see my old teachers, and the current class seemed enthused about the class and wanted to help me show my film in the US.
- In Jaipur I got an email from a friend who I did the MSID program with and traveled together after the program. In Sarnath we attended a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony where the Karmapa, the second highest Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition (after his holiest, the Dalai Lama) had blessed us and wrapped a red string around our neck. He said that when the string fell off it would signify that auspicious change would come into your life. Hers had just fallen off, which coincided with the possible entrance into a great Med school program after being rejected the first round. Maybe about an hour after responding to this letter, my string fell off while drying off from the shower.
- And what auspicious events followed the parting of my holy thread? No med school, just Delhi belly, depression, and a filthy bout of heat exhaustation. Maybe no one has gotten the message yet that my string is gone, or maybe my life's just been to good to get any better.
- So next Delhi, to run some errands and see my fellow fellow friend, who is also from the good ole Washington State, Naina. I also got an unexpected encounter with a past MSID friend, Carissa, who I hadn't seen, well, exactly since the day I received my acceptance letter from AIF. She just happened to be in Delhi the same time as I, getting a work visa in Thailand. It was very excellent to see both.
But, that aside...
- I got screwed by the rickshaw walas, subji walas, the post wala, for every wala there is, chances are I got screwed by them. Added to this continuous chain of screwage was the intense heat of Delhi that I was running around in.
- The only solace that I found in Delhi was at Rodeo's, my favorite bar in the world. It the only place (or at least that I know of) in India where you can get a pitcher of beer served to you by a Indian in complete country/western gear, including red hankerchief ascot, polished boots, and lean black cowboy hat, WHILE sitting on a horse saddle barstool. I have become a bit famous there for my Hindi and since I stop there whenever I am in town I know most all of the bartenders, a few which are from Uttarakhand.
- But no amount of rodeo's can hide oneself from the muck that is the plains. Promptly after leaving Rodeo's, Naina's purse got stolen by two goons on a motorcycle. Ugg.
- And then I got heat exhaustion, spending the night moaning with a headache and body cramps. Apparently, you need to drink a lot of water in the heat when you are walking around, who knew? My temperate Himalaya abode requires very minimal water intake, and the water intaken is not like the yellowish brown sludge that is filled with critters with an itchin to make your stomach explore, nor like the kind that comes in a bottle and costs about a third of an average Indians daily salary.
But I had to move on a get back to the ashram, 55,390,200 kilometers away from India or the cruel, cruel world for that matter, so I pressed on to catch a bus back. What I didn't anticipate was that it is peak season for holy pilgrimage to the bevy of temples in my state, so all of the buses where packed. This roughly translates into smashing yourself into a seat with two other very sweaty people, and having an pot bellied, even sweatier Indian man's pelvis on your shoulder the whole 9 hour journey. Luckily, I had some entertainment, I read the news that was filled with rapes, about how a rape victim had been beaten to near death by the family of the accused raper, about how a family killed their daughter over an affair she had with a low caste man, etc. (My God!) Too much, I had to go to my book. What is that about? A true account of a motherless child who shifted out of an abusive relationship with her father into an abusive relationship with her new husband at the age of 13, also the year she became pregnant with her first child, while she too was a child (although depressing, it gives an amazing subaltern account of courage and strength amongst the many obstacle in place for India's impoverished females. It offers with great articulation and clarity a voice that unfortunately is left unheard, or articulated for. If you get a chance you should hunt down a copy, A Life Less Ordinary by Baby Halder). I thought of all of the 13 year old girls in our school and how with a twist of fate could be married with children and about cried. All of this with a sweaty dudes pelvis on my shoulder, belly on my ear, and a case of heat exhaustion. More or less, I wanted to die.
But as I approached home, I saw one of my favorite kids, Swati, coming down the other direction in a car, When she shot me a big smile on her face after seeing me all of the shit in the world that had acquired in me the past two weeks just melted off. When I finally got to the ashram and met with everybody, then promptly passed out for two days, waking up to the laughter of my fellow ashram mates in the morning, the playful chirps of the darting swallows, and the smell of the freshly blossomed roses and cherry blossoms. Pure heaven, my friends.
Call me an escapist, call me what you want, but nothing is going to get me to go back to the plains in the next three months only out of extreme necessity.
I like it here just fine.
And I am going to miss it terribly when I am gone.
- I lost two bulleted lists of the events that happened in the last two months that I wanted to share with you (and yet I endeavor on).
- A moth flew into my shirt while I was sleeping, providing me with what might be the most terrifying wake of my life.
- I wore shorts to bed WITHOUT socks, I made it through the winter, an achievement that I regularly pat myself on the back for.
- A film crew came to the school to shoot a documentary. Two days of non stop filming from 4am to 11pm, quite possibly the most exhausting days of my life.
Side Story Digression: On top of that my 'friend' from Jodhpur that I met two years ago during my internship with Rupayan Sansthan decided to give me my very first stab in the back by a friend. So I had asked for his help on the film not because I need his expertise (we were going to hire a camera, which in India comes with a camera man) or equipment (I have basic editing equipment on my computer), but because I wanted to spend time with him and his family when we were to edit the film. I thought that he was on the same page until the last day he told me that he wanted the copyrights to the raw footage that we shot. This opened up a pretty ugly fight between him and the ashram placing me firmly in the middle. I calmed things a bit by yelling at him, but he ending up taking the raw footage. Now I had spend the next couple weeks plotting about how I could get the film back and wonder why he would try to take advantage of my friendship and an ashram of selfless individuals.
- Friends Jimmy and Ben reaffirmed my trust in humankind by agreeing to help me edit the film in the US and giving me many nice letters.
- Spent 28 hours on a train from Haridwar to Jodhpur 5 of which was spent in standstill. For those have been to Rajasthan, the scenery gives about as much as if you were to stick a couple branches in your childhood sandbox. But I did see at least 100 beautiful peacocks which was nice. I also saw at least ten gazelle looking things and some wild donkeydeer hybrid things (I'm not much for nomenclature, I apologize). The beauty of Rajasthan truly lies in it's people, with the women's colorful dress and abundant jewelry, to the Rajputs with their large turbans and larger mustaches. It lightened my heart to see my favorite sight in India once again, the Rajput, dhoti and all, carrying milk jugs on his 50's style bicycle. Although the beauty of the mountains is breathtaking, nothing beats an old Rajput on milk duty.
- Spent way to long at my friends house editing. He seemed to care more about his projects than helping me with mine, so I eventually left without editing the film as we intended, but I finished a 7 minute trailer (which I hope to post soon on the website). The whole experience was frustrating, but at least I did get to spend some time with his mother who is an absolute sweetheart, and brush up on my Indian copyright laws.
- Next I went to Jaipur where I gave a presentation about the APV school and my experience in India to the study abroad program I did two years ago, at the Minnesotan Studies in International Development (MSID). Quite interesting that the quietest person in class was the only to come back to give a presentation to date, and no less about Hindi, when I had by far the worst Hindi in the group (my inability to pick up the local language was notorious amongst my peers in the program; they deemed me, quite offensively but nevertheless not without a grain of truth, the 'hindi tard.' jerks). But it went well, it was great to see my old teachers, and the current class seemed enthused about the class and wanted to help me show my film in the US.
- In Jaipur I got an email from a friend who I did the MSID program with and traveled together after the program. In Sarnath we attended a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony where the Karmapa, the second highest Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition (after his holiest, the Dalai Lama) had blessed us and wrapped a red string around our neck. He said that when the string fell off it would signify that auspicious change would come into your life. Hers had just fallen off, which coincided with the possible entrance into a great Med school program after being rejected the first round. Maybe about an hour after responding to this letter, my string fell off while drying off from the shower.
- And what auspicious events followed the parting of my holy thread? No med school, just Delhi belly, depression, and a filthy bout of heat exhaustation. Maybe no one has gotten the message yet that my string is gone, or maybe my life's just been to good to get any better.
- So next Delhi, to run some errands and see my fellow fellow friend, who is also from the good ole Washington State, Naina. I also got an unexpected encounter with a past MSID friend, Carissa, who I hadn't seen, well, exactly since the day I received my acceptance letter from AIF. She just happened to be in Delhi the same time as I, getting a work visa in Thailand. It was very excellent to see both.
But, that aside...
- I got screwed by the rickshaw walas, subji walas, the post wala, for every wala there is, chances are I got screwed by them. Added to this continuous chain of screwage was the intense heat of Delhi that I was running around in.
- The only solace that I found in Delhi was at Rodeo's, my favorite bar in the world. It the only place (or at least that I know of) in India where you can get a pitcher of beer served to you by a Indian in complete country/western gear, including red hankerchief ascot, polished boots, and lean black cowboy hat, WHILE sitting on a horse saddle barstool. I have become a bit famous there for my Hindi and since I stop there whenever I am in town I know most all of the bartenders, a few which are from Uttarakhand.
- But no amount of rodeo's can hide oneself from the muck that is the plains. Promptly after leaving Rodeo's, Naina's purse got stolen by two goons on a motorcycle. Ugg.
- And then I got heat exhaustion, spending the night moaning with a headache and body cramps. Apparently, you need to drink a lot of water in the heat when you are walking around, who knew? My temperate Himalaya abode requires very minimal water intake, and the water intaken is not like the yellowish brown sludge that is filled with critters with an itchin to make your stomach explore, nor like the kind that comes in a bottle and costs about a third of an average Indians daily salary.
But I had to move on a get back to the ashram, 55,390,200 kilometers away from India or the cruel, cruel world for that matter, so I pressed on to catch a bus back. What I didn't anticipate was that it is peak season for holy pilgrimage to the bevy of temples in my state, so all of the buses where packed. This roughly translates into smashing yourself into a seat with two other very sweaty people, and having an pot bellied, even sweatier Indian man's pelvis on your shoulder the whole 9 hour journey. Luckily, I had some entertainment, I read the news that was filled with rapes, about how a rape victim had been beaten to near death by the family of the accused raper, about how a family killed their daughter over an affair she had with a low caste man, etc. (My God!) Too much, I had to go to my book. What is that about? A true account of a motherless child who shifted out of an abusive relationship with her father into an abusive relationship with her new husband at the age of 13, also the year she became pregnant with her first child, while she too was a child (although depressing, it gives an amazing subaltern account of courage and strength amongst the many obstacle in place for India's impoverished females. It offers with great articulation and clarity a voice that unfortunately is left unheard, or articulated for. If you get a chance you should hunt down a copy, A Life Less Ordinary by Baby Halder). I thought of all of the 13 year old girls in our school and how with a twist of fate could be married with children and about cried. All of this with a sweaty dudes pelvis on my shoulder, belly on my ear, and a case of heat exhaustion. More or less, I wanted to die.
But as I approached home, I saw one of my favorite kids, Swati, coming down the other direction in a car, When she shot me a big smile on her face after seeing me all of the shit in the world that had acquired in me the past two weeks just melted off. When I finally got to the ashram and met with everybody, then promptly passed out for two days, waking up to the laughter of my fellow ashram mates in the morning, the playful chirps of the darting swallows, and the smell of the freshly blossomed roses and cherry blossoms. Pure heaven, my friends.
Call me an escapist, call me what you want, but nothing is going to get me to go back to the plains in the next three months only out of extreme necessity.
I like it here just fine.
And I am going to miss it terribly when I am gone.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Seeds of Change
So I believe I have written a blog about the dismal conditions of government schools: teacher's absenteeism and apathy, rampant beatings, rote memorization, low achievement levels, high dropout rates, etc. Our school have been working on an intervention with 28 government schools in Uttarkhand, providing trainings and materials in hope to significantly change the current educational order. Upon our initial survey of the schools, I must admit I wasn't very hopeful.
But I just got back from a week of surveying participating schools and was shocked to discover that a lot of what we introduced in the training has been applied in these schools. There were about two schools that did absolutely nothing and threw a fistful of excuses at us as to why they couldn't implement the program, which revolved around not being able to introduce anything new into the curriculum because they were already overburdened. This is pretty absurd considering that all the methods we introduced were meant to be complimentary to the existing government curriculum. But the rest of the schools showed dramatic change. At almost all of the schools, the children meditate regularly. These are government schools! This is truly amazing. The teachers were all accolades about meditation, they said that it was useful to calm the children, and by products included heightened concentration and ability to pick up new concepts easier. In many of the schools the teachers meditated with the students, just the symbolic act of a teacher sitting on even ground with her children is an amazing change from the oppressive school atmosphere we noticed before.
Also, it was quite touching to hear the children singing quite beautifully the APV songs in their school. Music is a very important piece to our pedagogy, we have about 35 songs or so and we taught about ten to the school children that came to our training. The children had memorizes many of these songs and sing them daily in school. We visited one school after school hours had concluded. The kids gathered with some of their friends to show off their skills to the APV team and gawk at the whitey. But when they began to sing for us, I was shocked to see that the children's friends, not enrolled at the school, had also memorized APV songs. This demonstrates that the children are sharing with their communities the APV pedagogy and perhaps that our intervention is having a farer reaching effect than we had initially planned.
To further this point, two teachers that participated in the program have become so passionate about it that they have set out on their own initiative to teach our pedagogy to neighboring schools. This is an amazing indicator that teachers would take time out of their schedule to spread our ideas because they feel so strongly for our methods of teaching and how it has brought about changes in their school.
Another important observation is the change in the learning atmosphere. The children and teachers seemed much more at ease with one another. In schools where previously we saw very timid, quiet children in front of their teachers, now were joking, laughing, asking questions with their teachers.
Finally, the substantive concepts that we introduced at the training, the math concepts have been covered in class, those children that attended our training have been teaching other children. For the most part the teachers have found our methods and materials extremely helpful
Hopefully this moment can be sustained. We have the government on our side which is very strange considering the uniqueness of our project. The highest educational government official, Pandey ji, is fully on board and told us that he wanted to make sure that our pedagogy is used to guide the direction that primary education in Uttarakhand. I am also working on a proposal with Plan International to expand our project under their new 'Learn Without Fear' campaign, which would enable us to touch schools all over India. Pretty exciting prospects, perhaps we are seeing the seeds to the children's revolution that my mentor has envisioned for so long.
But I just got back from a week of surveying participating schools and was shocked to discover that a lot of what we introduced in the training has been applied in these schools. There were about two schools that did absolutely nothing and threw a fistful of excuses at us as to why they couldn't implement the program, which revolved around not being able to introduce anything new into the curriculum because they were already overburdened. This is pretty absurd considering that all the methods we introduced were meant to be complimentary to the existing government curriculum. But the rest of the schools showed dramatic change. At almost all of the schools, the children meditate regularly. These are government schools! This is truly amazing. The teachers were all accolades about meditation, they said that it was useful to calm the children, and by products included heightened concentration and ability to pick up new concepts easier. In many of the schools the teachers meditated with the students, just the symbolic act of a teacher sitting on even ground with her children is an amazing change from the oppressive school atmosphere we noticed before.
Also, it was quite touching to hear the children singing quite beautifully the APV songs in their school. Music is a very important piece to our pedagogy, we have about 35 songs or so and we taught about ten to the school children that came to our training. The children had memorizes many of these songs and sing them daily in school. We visited one school after school hours had concluded. The kids gathered with some of their friends to show off their skills to the APV team and gawk at the whitey. But when they began to sing for us, I was shocked to see that the children's friends, not enrolled at the school, had also memorized APV songs. This demonstrates that the children are sharing with their communities the APV pedagogy and perhaps that our intervention is having a farer reaching effect than we had initially planned.
To further this point, two teachers that participated in the program have become so passionate about it that they have set out on their own initiative to teach our pedagogy to neighboring schools. This is an amazing indicator that teachers would take time out of their schedule to spread our ideas because they feel so strongly for our methods of teaching and how it has brought about changes in their school.
Another important observation is the change in the learning atmosphere. The children and teachers seemed much more at ease with one another. In schools where previously we saw very timid, quiet children in front of their teachers, now were joking, laughing, asking questions with their teachers.
Finally, the substantive concepts that we introduced at the training, the math concepts have been covered in class, those children that attended our training have been teaching other children. For the most part the teachers have found our methods and materials extremely helpful
Hopefully this moment can be sustained. We have the government on our side which is very strange considering the uniqueness of our project. The highest educational government official, Pandey ji, is fully on board and told us that he wanted to make sure that our pedagogy is used to guide the direction that primary education in Uttarakhand. I am also working on a proposal with Plan International to expand our project under their new 'Learn Without Fear' campaign, which would enable us to touch schools all over India. Pretty exciting prospects, perhaps we are seeing the seeds to the children's revolution that my mentor has envisioned for so long.
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