Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Renu Kanojias daily commute from Molarband camp on the outskirts of Delhi to Laxman Public School LPS in the citys south,includes a school bus,a DTC bus and finally an auto. On her way back,the Class XI student travels from the spacious school in Hauz Khas,via the leafy roads of Panchsheel,past Metro construction,alongside a Yamuna canal and finally through the pipette-narrow alleys of Sapera Basti.
Clothes tied in bundles crowd the lavender room of her house. Her father irons for a living and earns around Rs 100 a day. After hastily changing out of her school uniform,Renu recounts her first week in LPS,in Class III she was among the brightest students picked from the Sapera Basti neighbourhood school run by LPS. We had an English test,but I hadnt come prepared. My teacher gave me a book and said,Keep it with you. I was so happy that teacher was doing this for me. She adds with a laugh,The joke was that I had the book,but I could not answer,as I couldnt understand the questions.
Ashok Agarwal,an advocate,who has worked for the implementation of the Right to Education Act,says approximately 20,000 students are currently enrolled in different classes under the economically weaker section EWS category,in Delhi. Like those of students from EWS,Renus is a story of struggle,persistence and finally assimilation.
Looking back,Renu says she found Classes III and IV difficult,as she had to attend remedial classes,something she has not had to do since. Her teacher once told her to read an English chapter with help from her parents at home. I had nothing to say. How could I explain to her? I started crying. When I explained to her,she helped me a lot. She adds,By Class V,it became normal. But in Class VII,Maths became so8230;,she trails off with a giggle. Happy to abandon the sciences after Class X,she now enjoys the humanities,especially psychology,I like knowing about peoples minds, she says.
In the debates that rage between private schools and the government,concerning the requirement to enrol children from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged communities in their incoming class to the extent of 25 per cent,according to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education,2009 terms like social adjustment and psychological impact are frequently bandied around. Does it ever unsettle Renu that most of her classmates are from more affluent backgrounds? Im not bothered, she says unflinchingly,No one says anything to me. I am here to study.
Deepali,or Sona,as she is called at home,was born on May 20 1996,in Balrampur Hospital,Lucknow. Her mother saw her only once before she passed away. Radha,her bua and guardian,remembers,Sona looked like a skinned chicken when she was born, Sona chuckles merrily into her palm. Its a story shes heard before but one that she clearly enjoys hearing. Radha continues,She was two months premature. Her stomach was bloated and her legs were thin. Radha nurtured the baby,feeding her milk through a syringe.
Sonas father,a lab assistant,remarried and busied himself with his new family,ignoring his first-born. Sonas welfare fell upon Radha,who enrolled her in private schools and provided her with the opportunities that she didnt have. Having joined La Martiniere Girls College,Lucknow,in Class VI,Sona is today a confident girl who speaks impeccable English. I want to be a teacher, she says,pointing to a blackboard in the veranda of her house,which has Sona is a good girl,scribbled in pink chalk.
Neither Sona nor Radha seem outwardly perturbed that most of Sonas classmates come from wealthier families. She celebrates her birthdays and spends her evenings with her school friends and her back friends those who live behind her house. Radha says,Yes,those school children do go to malls and PVRs. I cant do that for Sona. In the future she will have to do all this for herself.
Renu spends no time with the teenagers who live in her basti. Her day exists only between the walls of her school and her house. Her father says,She doesnt even go out to buy matches. Speaking for the first time in Hindi,she says,The children here are very different8230;in everything8230;thinking8230;talking. When I was small,I had friends here. Not any more.
Preeti Kumari,from Navjeevan Camp,Govind Puri,who studies in Class V,LPS,similarly has friends only from school and not her locality. Some of the younger children in her neighbourhood call her didi and ask her to teach them as this 11-year-old used to take tuitions for them.
Sonas two younger sisters,Muskaan 10 and Khushi six,attend Play Way,an English medium school. But the teachers misspell and slip up on grammar. Muskaan can barely string together an English sentence. When Sona tries to correct their faulty usage,her sisters mock her,calling her English waali. Mujhe kharab lagta hai, says Sona,her face falling for the first time. Preeti today is more fluent in English than in Hindi. Her mother,Munni Bai,has never attended school. Elders in her village chided her,Why do you want to go to school? Do you want to be Indira Gandhi? Today,her mother is proud that her daughter often forgets common Hindi words. Preeti adds,Last year I went to my uncles house in Aligarh. I said chulhe mein aag lagao8230;everyone laughed. Its chulhe mein aag jalao. They call me Angrezan. I say I am Angrezan. Sona realises that she is more fortunate than her sisters to attend a better school and receive a superior education,and she has a simple explanation for it,Some people have luck.
Sometimes,however,luck runs,out as Vineet,from GD Goenka School in Delhi realised earlier this year. The son of Satyapal,a postal worker,he was told on July 19,to leave class,wait in the reception and was then dropped home without a word. When his mother Kailash saw him at the door,she knew he had been expelled. As a 14-year-old,Vineet was at first excited about getting a half-day. He was oblivious that school had shut its door to him,because his fathers income had increased and he was now considered ineligible for the EWS category. Kailash says,At first,he wasnt worried. He was happy to be at home and play. But then after two-three days he got worried. All his friends would go to school and he was left at home.
Satyapal,who has been delivering mail to Vasant Kunj and to GD Goenka school for 20 years,says,I take the daak to the school every day. I do them a sewa. Why shouldnt they take my son? Adamant to get Vineet reinstated,Satypal took help from Agarwal,and Vineet was allowed to return to class after a week.
The repercussions of Vineets case were felt far from Vasant Kunj in Noida. Seven-year-old Shruti,who studies at Starex International School in Vasundhara Enclave,east Delhi,came home with a letter from school asking for her parents income certificate. She told her mother Vijaylaxmi,Only three of us in class got this letter. Why? Her mother pacified her,saying it was only for special children.
Vijaylaxmi,whose husband works in a shop,hasnt told her young children that they fall in the EWS category or that they dont pay fees. She says,Children should not be made aware of it. It should remain between parents and the school. It should only be between the school principal or accountant and the parents. Even teachers should not know. She recounts that at the first parent-teacher meeting,she noticed that EWS had been written near her daughters name in the class register. She felt the sting of discrimination and wanted to bring it up with the authorities,but on her following visit she was relieved that it had been erased.
Vijaylaxmis friend Nargis,whose seven-year-old daughter studies at Queen Marys in Noida,says some children distribute geometry boxes to the entire class on their birthdays. She sends two pencils for each child and a bag of toffees for her daughters birthday. Nargis,whose husband works in an embroidery shop,feels schools should have rules to prevent such economic disparities from appearing in classrooms.
At the winter carnival in Starex School,an elephant obliges young children with a plodding ride,while a jumping castle sends others into fits of glee. Vijaylaxmis daughter pulls at her shawl and says,Give me money for food and rides. No8230; not Rs 20. Hurry. Chhavis parents gave her Rs 200,hurry. Give me. Vijaylaxmi looks aside with a smile. She cant hide everything from her daughter.
