Just A Teacher

A lean figure draped in a simple light-coloured cotton saree, her hair plaited long, there was nothing that made her stand out. She sat on the ground amongst some twenty-odd children. Neither the mud on the floor nor the hot blazing sun above disturbed her nor her children. I sat at a distance donning my passive-researcher hat with a pen and book in my hand, looking at them. 

A rural government school teacher - I wondered which class she was teaching as curious faces across ages looked at her. Was she teaching a particular subject? Who are her friends, her fellow colleagues? Of course, my brain which had studied sociology kept lending me all its lens to look through - look at how inclusive her class is, she is doing prayers from all religions, are children from all castes sitting together, does the teacher give voice to all the children, whose language does she use, on and on. But nothing seemed to matter to this lady. 

Just as her prayers were complete, which I must admit were common Hindu ones, she was lost, she was one amongst them. They all sat in a circle, each child sharing her own stories with everybody around. They were all talking, giggling, laughing as if nothing on the Earth mattered to them except themselves. I waited for the bell to ring and remind them of their first-class - shouldn't they be moving back to class and pulling out those notebooks. But the teacher didn't care. Very slowly did their conversation comes to a close. Quite seamlessly, children started picking up brooms and started cleaning their school premises and the single room which stood in the entire premise. The teacher was one with them again. She did not stand back to give instructions but was singing songs in their language as she cleaned. Some children picked up the songs after her. The whole cleaning was done like a fun activity and not a chore to be completed. 

Later they moved to a single room which they all shared. No, there were no separate classrooms, neither were there benches and desks. The children spread out mats and sat down in smaller circles inside the class. As I once again waited for the textbooks and notebooks to be fetched out, I was surprised to see the variety of things that came out - knitting yarn, beads, colours, of course, books and pencils were there too. And how the lone teacher catered to so many different age groups each working on different things would make another story in itself. Lunch was again a beautiful activity with the children and the teacher helped the lady who had come over to cook for them. 

Around 3 o clock, all the children left for their houses. She bid them all good-byes cheerfully and asked each of them to come back the next day. She is going to rest now, I thought. But she did not. "How will I rest?", she asked. " I have to visit the family of a child to counsel them.", she said. "Her parents are refusing to send the daughter to school as she has attained puberty. I do not want to miss my Gowri in school". Some other things with which she deals at the community level are drunkard fathers, keeping children away from drinking and smoking, ensuring girls keep coming to school, sanitation and hygiene awareness. 

No newspaper coverage, No viral messages on social media, no awards, no not even high pay.

This is the story of many Rural Government School Teachers in our country. Many of whom are Women, shaping the future of many children and the country.