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sowing
Swarmigee a worker and Raghavan's faher sow the riceAruna’s fight continues.
She has been explaing the ‘reservation policy’ to me. Here in India, the cast system is alive and well. It is visible in the way some children won’t play with or hold hands with others and it is visible in the number of unversity palces awarded to students of different backgrounds. Aruna addresses the former in here school simply. Everyone is expected to perform the same rituals as everybody else (normally only a ‘brahmin’ would be allowed to peform the dialy hindy temple rite of ‘puja’) and everyone plays with everyone else. Discrimination within the school is tackled head on by getting the children to reflect on their words and deeds.
The government however is dealing with the caste division differently. It has introduced quotas so that universities have to take certain percentages from different castes. Currently students are protesting and Aruna herself is furious. In her regularly column in the New India Express she has taken on the government accusing it of bigotry, corruption and short-slightness as well as not facing the real issue - that of investing in education across India, across caste and at primary level.
She is concerned that with higher
education opening its doors to the previously less literate classes, standards are dropping when it is at the base level that we should be raising them.
I am slowly beginning to understand her motivation behind the school and both some of the resistance and challenges she and Raghavan face (as well as the rest of the family as everyone from Jane Bond to Amma has a role to play in the running of the school).
I’m getting to know the kids better at school and as their english improves I am getting more and more exhausted. One darling little boy write a story about me in Tamil, however when Aruna asked him to try and translate it for me he became so wracked with nerves and so physically sick that he was unable to make it to school the next day. However we’ve gotten past that barrier and he is now writing (not just speaking) in English. He has also asked to come back to London with me and work at the beeb. Not quite sure that’s the example I should be setting, but there you go…
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Brett/Mark/lila - imagine how knackered we were after each visit to a school. Now imagine doing that in 38 degree heat and with them all jabbering away in Tamil.
Brett/Mark/Sam - has history 2 taken off yet?
Mark - I reckon you have made it to a beach before me… but I'm loving 'White Mughals' nonetheless :o)
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Brett
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Enna kelvigal irunthithu?
Brett/Mark/lila - imagine how knackered we were after each visit to a school. Now imagine doing that in 38 degree heat and with them all jabbering away in Tamil. Like when I went to Ealing with Rob in the middle of last summer when the school had us in a tiny upstairs room with all the huge iron radiators turned up to 11 probably. Although I don't think they spoke Tamil, in fact if I remember correctly, the blackboard had evidence of a previous lesson teaching the five year olds how to write complaining letters to the Daily Mail about shoddy service and the declining moral standards of the BBC. I copied the notes down needless to say... Glad you are enjoying the Tamil school experience, the kids may get their chance when all our jobs are outsourced to Calcutta. Brett/Mark/Sam - has history 2 taken off yet? That particular porker has still to be fitted with wings let alone find its way to a runway!