Gandhi Fellowship: From India to Bharat: Kya de sake ga mere koi.....................

Beyond the realm of armchair talk to walking grassroot realities

The Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF), the first of its kind in India, was conceived by the necessity that preceded it. The necessity spun out of the fact that teachers and headmasters of government schools, though trained well to be inside the classroom, were being deprived of appropriate and adequate training to run a school as an independent unit. This was largely due to a complete absence or careless scarcity of available options in terms of institutions to meet this need. This need was congruent to certain researches that showed that low standards of quality in learning are directly related to low levels of proficiency in running a school.

To strike at the root of this problem, KEF devised the Principal Leadership Development Program (PLDP) in Rajasthan. Only recently garnering state support via an MOU, the PLDP although had unwound its initial stages at the grassroots level since January this year, consolidating the requisite support from the lower echelons of local and district departments up to the state educational departments. This was done from down to up instead of up to down to ensure that sustenance for this initiative remains with the passage of time.

The PLDP ultimately places keen focus on the Headmaster/ Principal as it is believed that if appropriate and adequate assistance to them in the arenas of personal, social, instructional and institutional functioning is provided a change in schools is sure to be noted. The school as a unit is but viewed as a triangle with the HM at the top, the teachers in the middle and the students the largest mass at the bottom. It was logically derived that the HM receiving training from the top would divulge quality for it to filter down to the bottom.
To transport the PLDP from the boundaries of filed papers, posters and spoken word into a breathing reality, the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation supported the creation of the Gandhi Fellowship. This brought together able and compassionate youth from colleges in and around Delhi as fellows, all strung together by the oneness of cause.

Jhunjhunu: More Than A Funny Sounding Word

The coming together of eleven people: all from different backgrounds, all with different utopias, all with different methods in their peculiar madness, all with different passions and biases, but needled into the same thread by the singularity of belief and cause – sustainable change – within the self and in the targeted environment, that of government schools.

Leaving behind friends, televisions, movie halls, malls, cloistered academic lives and everything else urban, apart from the contrast it constantly provides, us folk came around to Jhunjhunu like a breeze here to stay. After excursions into the town and swallowing all of the little it had to offer one felt at home in these new environs. From making friends with the juice and cigarette guy to having made acquaintances of the waiters at the town’s only two restaurants, life here in its limited space has managed to offer endless bounty in terms of peeling new experiences.

It is, however, the incursions into the villages that will not ever be gratified. From earning the wrath of the bus conductor for making anachronistic noise to arguing ceaselessly about the pros and cons of purdah (oppression of the woman to protection from sun), from gazing cows and camels to restless flowers in tranquil landscapes, from smoking cigarettes behind the elaborate pillars of abandoned wells (dhaani) to conversing with heavily jeweled women, and so much more that there will be justice only if it is seen with one’s own eyes and felt by the heart.

After a long day (which would include getting ready, gobbling a quick bite while slowing down for relishing slurps of tea, riding the motorbike at average speed into the assigned village for an assigned task which can range from interaction with the sarpanch to teaching students math, that too in Hindi laced with broken Rajasthani!, coming back home/office, reflecting over the day’s incidents and experiences, sharing it with peers, bitching about the cook’s turmeric dosed food) one finally retires to the room or the roof where the moon and her harem of stars nurse…

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Kya de sake ga mere koi.....................

Kya de sake ga mere, Bachpan ke din koi……..
Jab na tha Gum bas thi kushiyan he sari,
Jab Gumo mai thi, ye ankhe soyi soyi,
Jab Kushiyon pe hi bante thi, bate hamari,

Kya de sake ga mere, Bachpan ke din koi……..
Jab paise mai hi simti thi, khwahishe hamari,
Jab Dada ki kahaniya hi thi, tamanna hamari,
Jab paro pe hi hoti thi, manjil hamari,

Kya de sake ga mere, Bachpan ke din koi……..
Jab padne se ankhe hoti thi bhari,
Jab kitabo se hoti thi junge/ladayion hamari,
Jab ankho se hi bahti thi nadiyan sari,

Kya de sake ga mere, Bachpan ke din koi……..
Jab baheno ka karna phati kamiz per silaye,
Jab naye kapde pe hoti thi, ladayian hamari,
Jab andhere se lagta tha mujhko dar or chil-laker pukarna kahan ho mere bhai,

Jab patango ke doro mai thi, uljhan hamari,
Jab kancho-goliyon mai simti thi gunjee hamari,
Jab chejo ko todna thi fitrat hamari,

Kya de sake ga mere, Bachpan ke din koi……..
Jab papa ki ungiliyan thi manjil hamari,
Jab ammi ke anchal mai thi dunia hamari,

“The smallest children are the nearest to GOD, as the smallest planets are nearest to Sun”
(Salman )

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: A beautiful poem with a stark image; July 26, 2010 at 10:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Koi lauta de mere wo din,jab drakhto ke tale gujarti thi bitta tha din.
Hamri majliso ko Khusiyo ki talash Rahti.
Ham to Andhre me bhi khojte the ek hath.
Ab to lakho hath hai hamre sath,
fir bhi jindagi akele hi gujarti.; September 11, 2010 at 11:04 PM
Indipitara said...: Koi lauta de mere wo din,jab drakhto ke tale gujarti thi bitta tha din.
Hamri majliso ko Khusiyo ki talash Rahti.
Ham to Andhre me bhi khojte the ek hath.
Ab to lakho hath hai hamre sath,
fir bhi jindagi akele hi gujarti.; September 11, 2010 at 11:06 PM
AnuRadha GarimelLa said...: beautiful!!! :); March 19, 2011 at 4:23 PM

Gandhi Fellowship: From India to Bharat

Today I will,tomorrow i can !

Beyond the realm of armchair talk to walking grassroot realities

Jhunjhunu: More Than A Funny Sounding Word

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Kya de sake ga mere koi.....................

4 comments: