PUNE, Dec 4: As the ``queen of hearts'' shyly fluttered her eyelashes, a gallant Shaktimaan vowed to save the world from bad men while the clown that would have put even Raj Kapoor's joker to shame merrily pranced about evoking peals of laughter.It may not have been a grand theatrical performance enacted in the corridors of the Pune Municipal Corporation's Netaji Subashchandra school at Yerawada recently. In fact the ``star cast'' making their debut were virtual strangers to each other.And yet the third in the unique series of ``twinning'' sessions, children from municipal and private schools came together, played and learnt from each other. For the first time in their lives, children from totally different socio-economic backgrounds got the chance to become friends.Why do we think some people deserve more than others ? What makes us see people as stereotypes and not individuals ? What makes a child distrust another? Why do we confuse value with price ? Just a few questions that took the shape of a project ``Mel jol - hum bacchon ka'' under the auspices of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and now reaches out to 20,000 children in 35 schools.After the successful experiment in Mumbai, project coordinators Swagata Chakravarty and Abhijit Deshmukh tied up with the PMC and launched their Mel Jol programme with Rewachand Bhojwani Academy's school and Karnatak High school. While Bhojwani Academy standard V children made friends with their counterparts at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar school in the cantonment, Karnatak High school's standard VI children found new chums at the PMC school number 74.The third ``twinning'' session included 68 standard VI students each of a private Don Bosco school and Subashchandra municipal school. For 12-year-old Lekha Naiknavare of Don Bosco school, Mel Jol means being together while Kavita Shendge of Netaji school says she likes her new friend. Two classrooms are a scene of hectic activity as eight groups work rapidly, cutting newspapers and coloured paper to dress up their kings, queens, clowns and Shaktimaan.Project coordinator Abhijit Deshmukh sings Hum sab bacchon main shakti hain, hum sab kuch kar sakte hai along with the children while forming other groups to participate in the ``Akdam-Takdam train'' race followed with a bag of popcorn for everyone. Children from municipal schools may not have brand new tiffin boxes, nor can they afford shiny black shoes like their counterparts in private schools.Some schools even snubbed Mel Jol project coordinators as ``their girls and boys'' definitely cannot mix with the municipal kids. Yet, as Swagata says, while taking the children for an ``amoeba race, a beginning has been made as equit education is recognising that all human beings are equal yet uniquely different''.
