Swades Revisited-III-Apni To Paathshaala

The day after, while I was waiting for a local transport (now jeeps run from my village to bus stand every 30 mins) beside the school of the village.

I had to admire this school because what was earlier a dilapidated building hardly running classes till 5th class was now well bordered area hosting classes till 8th. To make matters still more circumstantially coinciding with Swades’s plot, a part of school also hosted panchayat’s meetings; and in case of disease outbreaks, it was also used as a make shift hospital.

My cousin sisters had bunked the school to see me off and were with me there so I thought of visiting the school. Each cousin was enthusiastic to take me to their class, so Mohan Bhargava approached the school. It was a typical scene in some classes wherein I could see that the classrooms were much bigger for the no. of students attending school that day. In some classes I saw the teachers had put up a veil of newspaper between them and the students, each busy in their own worlds.

By this time this Swades idea had hit me and I just smiled thinking if there might be a Gitaji too. I went to a cousin’s classroom, expecting Gitaji but I think I was expecting too much. Had I said this to my college friends, they would have said, “Agar tu Mohan Bhargava hai to woh bhi Gita se kam nahin rahi hogi” (replace the name of the characters with the name of the actors). In this class, apparently the chalk had finished so the Gitaji had drawn a typical chemistry diagram of a round bottom flask with spirit lamp, wire gauge for steam forming moisture on a glass rod. The edges of the diagram were thinning down maybe because of small, spent-up pieces of chalks were used for drawing. She told me that she was from a nearby town and simultaneously also managed to keep interrupting the students’ chat-break, quietly asked everyone to continue drawing the diagram in their science copies and everyone willingly followed. May be my cousin had told her that I am an engineer and work in Mysore, so may be she was a bit impressed and a bit conscious while talking.

I took leave from her and visited my other cousin’s class. As soon as I entered, all the students stood up folding hands chanting Namaste in unison. This took me by surprise and I laughed noticing that the same class hosted Sanskrit for class 4th and Mathematics for 5th! I talked to masterji and he told me that he is very committed to teaching these children and wished that all the 5th class children should apply for Navodaya but the students are non-sincere. If I had to name him a character from Swades, I’d name him Mela Ram.

At the end of the visit, I realized that may be women do a better job than men when it comes to social service and selfless commitment; there may always be exceptions but somehow women are able to nurture more passion than men do who most often do it perfunctorily.

I have seen my village trotting to progress; it has a big school and the electricity is also slated to reach the village within a year. So how does the village benefit from me? Well my father had promised to build a room in the school for the children. With now the plans for the school to be built till high school, I have thought of contributing to it. Although resourceless, I will contribute it in one way or the other in future.

Next and Series Finale Blog: My Expts. With Spiritualism (refer to my previous blog to know more) – Conversation with my mother on God, puja, bhagwat and spiritualism.