A Date With Kaira

"Have you noticed the uncanny resemblances between kids and schools?" 

Drowsing Venu on the moving Jeep was alerted by the subtle question of Meghji, who was one of his companions in the team. 

They were going to an unknown village as a newly appointed inspection team from the district town. Meghji further continued in a philosophical tone, "As kids do have their unique identities, so do the schools. …"

The team was on their way to a school in a remote village somewhere in the Western Gujarat. In Meghji’s opinion, every school possesses certain universalities, wherever it may be and whomsoever it is for. There are certain striking similarities, irrespective of the diversity people come across around the world. It may be in a rural setting, in a posh locality of a metropolis, in a remote hamlet on the hills or in a desert. 

...   ...    ... 

Venu fondly recollects the very first day of his initial assignment to move with an inspection team to a school amidst the scattered dry thorny bushes of the scrubby grassland they called ‘banni’ somewhere in Kutch, aka Kachchh, the Westernmost part of India. 

This peninsular region is unique in terms of geology, geography, ecology and socio-cultural point of view. Any Indian from the main land India would find this region very strange indeed. 

Geologists inform us that a few historically ill-fated earthquakes changed the course of the great river Indus. And extensive silting blocked sea water, and the vast mudflats, aka the ‘Rann of Kachchh’, of today came into being. These mud-flats would get inundated in the monsoon, while during the rest of the year, the scorching heat of the blazing sun facilitates the only activity possible, which is salt farming’. It is very common at various locations of these harsh, inhuman mudflats. Geologists say it is actually an extension of the Arabian Sea. 

It’s really amazing to know from the historical travelogues that during the days of Alexander’s invasion, 'Ran-of-Kachchh' was very much a navigable sea. It’s definitely an intriguing fact, beyond doubt, for the curious students of today.

...  ...   ... 

Since his adolescence, distant lands have beckoned Venu off and on. But who knew what a lot of hardship they faced living in those beautiful exotic locations? He never knew how awful it could be until he literally had it. 

The school they set out to visit was at a distance of about ten kilometres from the nearest road point. Reaching the said road point, the team members were told by the shopkeeper of the only shop out there that the branch road leading to the school at Kaira village was in a very bad shape. Obviously, they had to leave their official vehicle parked near that shop-cum-residence, the sole habitable house in that vicinity.

There was the scorching heat of the merciless, burning sun above them. The hillocks and the scrubs all around appeared as they were in a state of deep, inconsolable grief. Quite faint though, a continuous irritating buzzing sound of the high-voltage cables overhead was very much audible. But, the backed mudflats, studded with tufts of hardy grasses and sedges here and there, constantly inspire the lesser mortals, the humans out there, to accept the challenge and survive against all odds. 

As one tries to take a wide-angle bird's-eye view in all directions, one would despair, for the desolate view reveals that at a considerable distance, nothing appears visible under the haze of dust, radiating heat, and constantly forming mysterious mirages.

...   ...   ... 

After some light refreshments and tea, they all hiked up to the school of that sleepy hamlet, Kaira. The kids were shouting at the top of their voices and singing some group song. Venu was literally dumbfounded to find the crowd—roughly at least a few hundred kids—amidst those God-forbidden mudflats. They came to know that many of those little ones would trek almost a mile every morning to reach their school. No sooner had they completed the group song, than they started talking to each other in their weird dialect, which sounded like a mixture of Sindhi, Urdu, and Gujarati.

Initially, their conversations were like whispers, but slowly the intensity rose. A bulky mastarji, a vernacular teacher, scolded them almost immediately; the expression on his face was full of anger. And keeping his hands at the back, he was gently swinging a shining cane. A mere glance at that dreadful tool would be enough to scare them. He called to the kids in their tongues, emphasising certain words in a repetitive manner. Those must be the necessary instructions for them to be disciplined in front of outsiders.

After their morning assembly, they all walked in perfectly maintained queues to their respective classes. They were absolutely disciplined. They left the trapezium-shaped open space in front of the flattened, V-shaped school building. It was on a vast, slightly inclined mudflat close to a tabletop hillock. The office room was right at the centre of the traditionally built building of the school. The top part of which was shaped like a monastery.

A short and petite lady named, Mrs. Nayani, who is the principal of the school, introduced her staff to the team members. Two KG teachers were seen struggling to put the string-tied hardboard-made-weather-chart just beside the door of the very next room. Meanwhile, a strongly built, dishevelled man carried one student who had fallen from a Coral tree nearby. Upon inquiry, the inspection team came to know that the boy was told to bring a few twigs of those heavenly blossoms to put in the flower vases. The boy had bruises all over his legs, hands, and face; thank God there was no major injury.

The first classroom the team entered was a language period in the third standard. One short guy with a persistent smile on his face was teaching them the popular story of the tortoise and the hare. The inspector asked them, "Who won the race?" Almost instantly, a brown-eyed boy jumped up and said, "The tortoise, sir, but sir, what is a tortoise?" It struck none of them that a tortoise was indeed not a very common creature for them. So, one of the team members explained the salient features of the humble tortoise in as simple English as he could.

The next class the team visited was a mathematics period in the ninth grade. One thin lady was teaching problems of mensuration. On the faded blackboard, she continued the drawings and writings. Though the class was quite silent, all the students weren’t really engrossed in those ‘areas and perimeters and cost of plastering, painting, whatever’. A few of them paid no heed. They would rather have observed every member of the inspection team through furtive glances. A member of the team, Mr Sharma, took a piece of paper, folded it, and tore two parts from the sides. And a perfect parallelogram was made. Taking a triangular part from one side of the same, he joined that part with the other side, and thereby a rectangle was formed. Looking at the paper pieces, a lean boy with untidy hair and a frazzled uniform raised his right hand. Mr Sharma got amazed when the boy explained the derivation of the formula to find the area of a parallelogram in his own broken sentences. That was indeed a laudable endeavour.

After observing a few more classes, the team returned to the office. The cook of the school, Kana Bhai, arranged some eatables and tea. In the meantime, two boys fought pugnaciously over a catapult. One of the two stabbed the other with a sharp dart on his left thigh. Besides balls, marbles, tops, etc., children in that region were fond of playing with darts too. That boy was bleeding terribly and groaning. After ‘cotton, bandage, and tincture iodine, he was sent with Kana Bhai on his bicycle for the ‘anti-tetanus injection’. The team members were told that the nearest health centre was about fifteen kilometres away from that place. Before leaving, the team visited the store, science labs, and library.

While coming out of the main gate Mr Sharma enquired, "What’s special about this place, I mean, the Kaira village?"

To their utter surprise, the principal of the school replied, Dates," locally called Kharek. These dates are indeed very special. People like to eat unripe, crunchy Kharek fruits. 

Venu immediately commented with a lighter tone, "Oh yeah, we really had a Date with Kaira, there's no doubt about it."