It’s a Tent, but it’s “big”

Everyone complains – after all, this is one of the things that make us human. Most of the things we complain about are what we feel as very important to us – “I missed the IPL matches because there was no electricity the whole day”, “I got a single digit percentage hike this year”, “my credit card company does not calculate the points correctly” and so on. We complain because we take certain things for granted. “Everyone has more, so I should be having even more”. But once in a while we have to pause our busy lives and look at the people who do not have the basic things which we take for granted. For example, if you are reading this then most probably you must have born in a family with a decent income, you must have worked hard, studied well and most probably you are earning a good income. The working hard part is in your hands but being born in the right place is sheer luck. And some are just unlucky.

Read India Foundation (http://www.readindiafoundation.org/) is a voluntary organization with focus on child education. And one of the main tasks they do is helping out Tent Schools. Tent schools - which are set up under the scheme “Sarva Shikshana Abhiyan” – are temporary schools for children of nomadic people and construction laborers who travel from place to place. I had a chance to visit one such school along with the volunteers of Read India Foundation last Saturday (17th May 2008). The school is called Brindavan School and is situated near Basavanagar in Bangalore.

We reached the school at around 11 AM and some volunteers were already in the school busy teaching numbers and names of animals to the kids there. Brindavan School is a one room school with an asbestos roof. The walls are full of posters and banners with short stories and numbers and alphabets and so on. The children were enthusiastic and brimming with energy (I was told later that they have a starting problem – the teacher has to go to their homes in the morning to pick them up – but they showed no sign of that when I saw them) and were enjoying the thrill of shouting the names of animals. After some time, it was story time and one volunteer narrated the story of how Lord Ganesha got His head. The story was followed by some questions and the boys who answered it got tennis balls. Some more activities followed and the kid who volunteered to come forward always received a gift. Before we left the school, one volunteer distributed sweets and biscuits.

As I was walking back to my house, I could feel the sun beating down on me. I was about to complain about the heat, but then I thought of the kids who spend the whole day in the tent school (which has an asbestos roof and no fan) and learn stuff which will one day shape their future. It would be hot and uncomfortable, but then we are the lucky ones. The next time you complain about the air conditioning not working in your office, just get up from that comfortable seat and think how lucky you are – you will feel better – and then decide to do something for these kids like buying a air cooler or more importantly spending time imparting knowledge to them.