Tirumalapur Z.P.School- The story of my many Urban Bubbles and how some popped!

"Westoxication", I said. "A great threat to the modernization in India, our mistaken modernity". "What is that?", my cousin asked. I explained how modernity in India is often confused for attire and appetite, not for achievement but for birth/privelege, not for equality but for pedigree...

His passion for his profession was difficult to hide. He readily agreed and noted down the new word. He would later use this in his address to his students. His piercing eyes and the handlebar moustache seeming a little misplaced for this academic discussion.

As we travelled from Mahbubnagar town to Tirumalapur village the many wars in running a Government school surfaced and engaged my mind that was constantly distracted by the lovely Telangana countryside in the monsoons. "Remote area...", he said, "me and some like-minded colleagues chose this school". Barely 7 kms off the NH7, I wondered if this was remote enough.

"Telugu medium has no future, the way the Telugu Academy has been run down offers little scope for pursuing education in Telugu..", he lamented. "English is the window to the globalised world. A smattering of English can open a whole new world..", I said. He agreed turning his gaze away from the highway to his ringing mobile. He answered in a heavy Telangana accent, "On schedule", he informed his headmaster. The highway ride was very smooth, in parts it hardly seemed like India. The roads were elegantly painted, nobody jumped lanes, smooth curves broke the monotony until we took a left turn and experienced a normal bumpy ride.

"450 children in this High School(Class 6 to 10). Around 70% passed Class 10 last year, A lot of my students are poor. A few of them are orphans. Not all villages want Government Schools to run properly. In villages with an strongly affluent class, there is a fear that the government school will upset the stratified society", these were coming from 16 years of teaching in rural Telangana.

"How do these affluent classes do this?", I asked innocently.

"In our school, a lot of us possess Masters degrees, there is already a feeling of being overqualified for this job. It is usually the case that a local political leader would visit our school and single out the teachers for his maid-servants' child not passing an exam.What can a teacher do in the few hours that these children spend at school? The teachers usually give up on this thankless job. We hardly see any appreciation for our role. We hardly see results!" Perhaps this organizational culture spreads into the whole system! Though one cannot draw a one to one relation here!

He told me to instill confidence in the students when I address. He wanted me to give them a strong message that all of them can indeed aspire for and lead a better life. I also recalled my conversation with Saikrishna(lovingly called Saibaba) the previous night where he asked me to talk about Abdul Kalam and how he was a paper-boy in Rameswaram.

An organization is its conversations. "I have to converse with all his colleagues.", I thought to myself.

The school was located outside the village. A compound wall demarcated it from its surroundings. As I entered the school I noticed that the wall on the other side had fallen down. "A rich contractor must live somewhere nearby", I thought. The school's matchbox-like building fringed in an L-shape. A oddly huge Acacia Tree adorned the middle of the ground.

I was invited to the Headmaster's room which also doubled up as the Granary for the school. A local women-SHG group were beginning their preparations to cook the Government sponsored Mid day meal. The headmaster told me that they earn around Rs4 per meal cooked. An additional Rs. 2000 is given to each of them. They were using firewood to cook the meal in open air."Getting gas is too much of a hassle", said the Headmaster. The nearest gas supplier being a good 30km away! I wasn't fully convinced.

1. Class 10

The energetic headmaster took me to meet the Class 10 students in their classrooms. It reminded me of my first day as a volunteer in Project 511 in mid-2008(read that blog entry here) in Neredmet ZP School. I interacted with Class 6 students then, I was hardly able to contain my emotions that day. What sort of classrooms are these? Why are there no benches? The school was in the capital of Andhra Pradesh! Can Roja become a doctor? Will the government allow her to? If Roja's parents trust the government with her education, and the government defaults. What recourse do they have? Those were the beginnings of my discovery of Government Schools.

A midst these children, I was very comfortable. I asked them to stand up and introduce themselves. Name and dream. Suseela got up and mentioned Police. The girls giggled and the guys guffawed. I asked them if they'd heard the name of Kiran Bedi. "Yes", said some of them. I told them how she became the 1st lady IPS of India. They consented. Many of the students wanted to be teachers. Most guys wanted to become police officers. There were about 6 doctors in the 81 students. I asked the class how they planned to become Teachers. Some of them read out their favorite poems! But only a handful knew what they'd have to do to achieve their dreams.

I asked them to promise me that on their notebooks today they'd write down their dreams in front of their names. "Dr. Anitha", I called out. The whole class giggled again. "Police Raju", I called out. They giggled. No wannabe I.A.S officers, there were a few engineers though, some consolation that! I asked them to find out from their teachers about how they became teachers. Ask their doctors, ask their neighbours...they nodded their heads. I briefly spoke about EAMCET, Ed-CET and Groups..some of them seemed to have some familiarity with the names. "Information asymmetry is the biggest challenge", I recalled my friend Jayachandra's words.

2. Computers & electricity.

There were 11 monitors connected to about 4 CPUs. I asked them what are the timings of power supply. "No timing as such. Usually there is no electricity, we get supply once in a while". The reality of 100kms from Hyderabad! Yes, where road-dividers have bright colored Airtel advertisement boards. Where street lights glow well into the mornings. Where we jump in rage everytime there is a long power cut! Refrain takes form of "Why does the light go out every time there is rain?" There popped my first urban bubble!

But, to the planners I need to ask, why not give the school laptops? You could charge them when there was power. The polythene-covered unused flat screens in an empty computer lab will stay with me for long!

Perhaps hearing my bubble pop, the headmaster added that they run the generator, a litre of kerosene(30Rs/litre) can supply power for an hour! We buy kerosene whenever we need to use the lab. "Does the school has internet?", I asked. "Yes, but BSNL network is..". I completed that sentence, not dependable here.

Centralized power systems will continue to fail our villages. Here's some hope from Bihar.Decentralized Rice Husk Power!

2. The generator and Public Address System

A meeting was called under the shade of the huge Acacia. A whole school of 450 children sat down under the tree shade!!! I addressed the audience. I told them the story of a boy from a village who sold papers and went on to become a great scientist. I asked them if they knew who he was.A student, Balakrishna, from the back guessed it right! "Wow! I learnt that yesterday!", i thought. I later met Balakrishna, he has secured 71% in Class 10, and was quite a bright kid. He was aspiring to become a doctor. And the way he was talking with me after the lecture strikes me now. Reminds me of how I would listen to Chief Guests at school functions. He was all ears, very eager. Balakrishna can go a long way.

I handed a cash award to the topper(83%) Yellewarayya. I called him to the dias and asked him to share how long he studied at home everyday. He told the audience that it wasn't possible to study everyday as he had chores to attend at home. Another bubble popped! But, he told me how he went to a friend's place before the exams to read under a lamp. Hardly 100kms from Hyderabad.

3. The Great Toilet debate
I noticed that the school had 3 dilapidated structures that were once toilets! Now, grass grew inside them. The headmaster explained that cleaning is a big problem with school toilets. It seems no one in the village was ready to come forward and clean them.

I told the gathering that the state of the schools toilets were a shame, using milder language. I asked the children to cooperate with the headmaster. Renovate the toilets and learn to use them well. I asked the HM to use the help of the kids and do something. I said I'd surely be back in a year or two to the same school. I wanted to see a functioning toilet by then!

Why can't schools hire Janitor/Cleaners? May be one person for 2-3 schools, give him a cycle!If possible a toilet cleaning machine like the ones they have in Indian railways. Give his children free education for life or A fixed deposit in his name?

More basically, why aren't schools teaching toilet manners in school?

The state of our toilets is a social malaise!

In my message to them I strongly told them how all of them had a spark and how they should always work towards their goals. I said all they needed to do was have the company of Good Books through the guidance of Good teachers, that they should always develop a habit of 'Good Ideas' and this will come from 'Good friends'. For all this to happen, it was important to never ever fall prey to 'Bad Habits' like Alcohol and Cigarettes! Cliched, but alcoholism in villages needs to be tackled from the schools! At the end, I asked them to plant fruit-bearing trees around the walls and asked the students to applaud a group of four girl students who had protected the some trees in summer.

Dipankar Gupta's insights in Mistaken Modernity have invaded my experiences connected to this trip! He speaks about Indians and toilets and how Consumerism in India is leading to a dilution of values of citizenship. Indian citizens have differential access to education, electricity, health, toilets, media and rights! Tragedy!

My cousin's comments about the 'remoteness' of the village struck me now. Yes, physically 7 km from a huge highway, 100km from Hyderabad but a long long way from mainstream India!

Apart from the infrastructural challenges, Government schools face huge systemic challenges, while urban India converses in English, the rural folk are still negotiating education in vernacular. Bright students who pass out of these schools then negotiate their entry into the mainstream of Technical Education!
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My interaction with the teenaged Tribal students of Vanavasi Hostel(in Hyderabad!) taught me how piffling my own academic achievements have been when I compare it with students like Raghupati(a Koya tribal), Rambabu, Karthik. These kids have moved out of their tribal villages(Khammam,Adilabad,Karimnagar), passed an exam to get into Vanavasi hostel in Hyderabad and all the time they were motivating themselves. The wouldn't have read at nights, they would have helped their family in the evenings! Such heroes they are!

In Hyderabad, they attend intermediate colleges in Telugu medium. They are preparing to write competitive exams and still do not have an Objective Question Bank!(I helped them out with that later..) . These kids require a separate discussion.

If anyone wants to do a sociological research on Urban India's insular lives, I'd say Vanavasi Ashram in Vinayak Nagar, Hyderabad is the best place to start. In a colony full of gossippy senior citizens,(who draw government pensions and laze around their Colony Society precincts) these kids are finding it hard to get an English tutor! And the Vice President of this Ashram speaks about how they are organizing a Sports Meet on a national scale! That man was really annoying!

Perhaps, one of my longest posts ever! If you have read it fully. Thank You. I'd be happy if you'd leave comments and help break some of my other bubbles. Shall upload a pic in some time.