in the same country. Calcutta and Sihora - they are worlds apart...in every way except in the color of our skin...
The ashram where I live has typical mud houses all around it - with their thatched roofs, courtyard smoothened with a mixture of cowdung and water, a cow or buffalo tethered to a stake, dung cakes drying on the roof top, a dog lazing in the wintry sun, a rope cot and stacks of firewood under a tin roof in one corner of the courtyard, we may wonder if we haven't moved back in time. The walls are whitewashed and clean, and the doorway is decorated as is the low mud wall that separates it from the next house.
The road to the school, where I have been assigned, is the National Highway No 7. It's a lovely road. On either side are fields as far as the eye can see - it's so beautifully peaceful and utterly pastoral.
The school caters to the children of this village and surrounding villages. There is a hunger for learning which is very touching. The children don't take anything for granted - I think they are very conscious of the fact that they have to get themselves an education if they are to go ahead. They know they have to fight huge, huge odds - unbelievable odds, but their sincerity cannot be doubted. In fact, tears come unbidden to my eyes when I see them struggling in class.
I overheard this conversation one morning - A parent who wanted admission for his 3-year-old child told the teacher-in-charge of admissions: 'I didn't get a chance to study and look at me - I neither have any knowledge, nor any morals. I don't know right from wrong. I don't know how to do things properly. I don't even know how to talk properly. I don't want my child to grow up like me. Here in the school he will have to study and learn to be a good human being.'
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