PRAYAS

As a part of the curriculum of a course I had to work for an NGO for about 10 days. I spent days searching for one in my vicinity and finally found one…Its known as Prayas. It deals with the education of underprivileged children and adult women. Initially when I applied, I just had my certificate in mind, and saw my convenience only. I took up the work of teaching rather than administrative work because the school was closer to my home as compared to the administrative office. I admit that I had been really selfish…Since it was my first day, I was give the nursery and KG classes to deal with…I thought to myself ‘great, now I’ll have to teach ABC…what a wonderful thing to do after a post-graduation in biotechnology, but…
When I entered the class…I was greeted by 54 innocent voices in chorus. I looked at their faces, smiling and joyous to see a new ‘madam’, as they put it. Initially I really didn’t know what to do and how to handle them, as they are a bunch (a rather big one) of boisterous kids…but gradually with the help of a more experienced colleague I managed to gather my energies. As the day progressed I felt a lot better as things were going just about fine…till a new student was sent to the class, his mother came along with him…His name is Sahil, and is really cute n chubby but he is a champion when it comes to crying…the moment his mother walked out of the class-room he started his orchestra. My colleague tried to console him and engage him in some talks but he kept crying finally after lot of hard work we had to call his mother and allow her to sit in the class...The moment she walked out of the class the boy would start off almost instantaneously…what scared my colleague more was that another girl named Nitya, who also has won the reputation of being the most cranky child in the batch, who surprisingly was in very cheerful mood today, shouldn’t start off…but she didn’t and trust me she is a delight to watch the moment she comes down to reciting nursery rhymes…
Then there was a trio of girls who just did want to sit separately and somehow struggled to sit on the bench meant for two only…I could only catch the names of two of them Damini (she has constant smirk on her face and is the most mischievous student) and Kusum…it was a task to get them to do any work…but they are really cute and to think that they live in such difficult circumstances (I have been to a slum and know the conditions there, so I know) and still manage to keep that captivating smile on their faces its great…
One thing that was common to all students was their zeal to learn, almost all of them performed their assigned class work and made sure we saw it. Even when we had to assign their home-works (long forgotten word for me), we didn’t give them much, but they kept on saying that they wanted to do more. Another thing that was very remarkable was that there was so much of concern for the others in the class also…if any student was not listening to what we were saying or teaching the other would nudge him/her and make sure that they listen…
But the highlight was Sahil…my hands are still aching…as I had to actually console him by carrying him around the entire class-room, showing him the different colorful charts, drawings etc…so that he stops beating the orchestra…but all this was only short-term, he would start off every 10 min and his mother had to sit their through-out the day…only a mother can do that for her child’s future…hats off to her…

On day 2: I entered the class and heard Sahil crying again, he came running to me in the hope that I would allow his mother to sit in the class…which I didn’t (felt bad, but couldn’t help it, he has to learn) but I allowed his mother to sit outside the class so that he could get a glimpse of her whenever he wanted. I made two new friends Disha and Anurag, both of them too sincere and too cute. By the end of the day Sahil had learnt to recognize the alphabet ‘A’ and the number ‘1’.

On day 3: I was just outside the school when I saw Sahil and his mother…we were 5 min early so I took him for a ride on my scooty. Then we went to the class…his mother seated outside the class. My colleague began with checking their Home-Work and I started giving them Class-Work for the day…I had just finished when a girl came to me with a blank notebook, she had not written anything…she said she can’t write…I took her and Sahil to the last bench and made them hold a pencil. It took me 15 min to get them to hold the pencils correctly and position the book correctly…now comes the real task…to teach them how to write the alphabet ‘A’…It took a cool 30 min before they got it perfectly…and Sahil took 40 min because half the time he was looking for his mother…but thank God he didn’t cry…I felt it was some achievement…At the end of the day Damini asked me “Madam aap kal bhi aoge na?” , I just smiled…

I felt really good…The in-charge asked me whether I would like to teach higher classes after he came to know that I was a post-graduate… and I declined…now when I come back home I really miss the kids and look forward to meeting them the next day…

I feel honored to be associated with an organization like this…To eradicate illiteracy, yeh hai meri taraf se ek chota sa prayas……