Sitting in the computer room, on the second floor of Deepa academy, I could hear the leaves rustle, while waiting for the girls to prepare what they would be speaking in class today. The class was unusually silent today. Jayasi and I could sense something missing. Without a second thought we knew what that was. It was the smile on their faces we get to see each evening.
We had a couple of things in mind today which we were planning to cover, but sensing the mood of the girls we decided to let the girls talk about their favorites. It could be anything which they like, their favorite food, fruit, vegetable, person, singer. Just anything they liked. This activity was carried out in the form of a game. The game was called Fire in the Mountain. The girls were made to stand in a circle, with both of us standing in the centre. As we called out “Fire in the mountain, run run run “, the girls started moving in the circle. When they did so, we called out a number and the girls had to rearrange themselves into groups. The number of the people in the group was the number that was called out by us. Those who didn’t manage to make a group were supposed to speak about their favorites.
The game seemed to lighten up the mood a little, with someone speaking about their brother, someone about their favorite musician, someone about their favorite fruit .Everyone in the class spoke well.
Most of them seemed to have cheered up, but the Smile was still missing somewhere.
Instead of discussing anything further today, we decided to play Antakshari with the kids. Antakshari is a game played between two teams, where each team is suppose to sing a song by the last alphabet (of the last word) of the song sung by the other team. They all seemed thrilled with the idea instantly, but wanted us to allow Kannada songs. When we told them that we didn’t mind, they seemed to be showing a different level of excitement all together.
Like always, the girls didn’t fail to amaze us. All of them turned out to be brilliant singers. Not one, but ALL of them sang so well. One important thing that excited us in class today was that a couple of girls who rarely took part in class activities were happily singing songs with full enthusiasm. We got an idea of the area we need to work on. They were definitely not shy of us, but it was the language that was acting as a barrier. Even though Jayasi and I hadn’t heard the songs or couldn’t even manage understanding what they meant, we surely had a good time! Not only because they were full of melody but also because we could sense the smiles returning.
Antakshari brought about the high point in today’s class. There was this girl who had hurt herself day before and had been appearing to be very low since then, just something during the game finally got her to smile. Her smile got all the girls excited and soon they all filled the room with their chirpy laughter which was such that even the songs sung by them couldn’t match the magic of their laughter.
Today while walking back to the hostel , Jayasi and I left a little later than usual ,but that didn’t matter, because today we had left the academy with a different feeling , a feeling of contentment , a feeling of satisfaction, something magical.
We had finally seen the girls back with the smiles.
We had a couple of things in mind today which we were planning to cover, but sensing the mood of the girls we decided to let the girls talk about their favorites. It could be anything which they like, their favorite food, fruit, vegetable, person, singer. Just anything they liked. This activity was carried out in the form of a game. The game was called Fire in the Mountain. The girls were made to stand in a circle, with both of us standing in the centre. As we called out “Fire in the mountain, run run run “, the girls started moving in the circle. When they did so, we called out a number and the girls had to rearrange themselves into groups. The number of the people in the group was the number that was called out by us. Those who didn’t manage to make a group were supposed to speak about their favorites.
The game seemed to lighten up the mood a little, with someone speaking about their brother, someone about their favorite musician, someone about their favorite fruit .Everyone in the class spoke well.
Most of them seemed to have cheered up, but the Smile was still missing somewhere.
Instead of discussing anything further today, we decided to play Antakshari with the kids. Antakshari is a game played between two teams, where each team is suppose to sing a song by the last alphabet (of the last word) of the song sung by the other team. They all seemed thrilled with the idea instantly, but wanted us to allow Kannada songs. When we told them that we didn’t mind, they seemed to be showing a different level of excitement all together.
Like always, the girls didn’t fail to amaze us. All of them turned out to be brilliant singers. Not one, but ALL of them sang so well. One important thing that excited us in class today was that a couple of girls who rarely took part in class activities were happily singing songs with full enthusiasm. We got an idea of the area we need to work on. They were definitely not shy of us, but it was the language that was acting as a barrier. Even though Jayasi and I hadn’t heard the songs or couldn’t even manage understanding what they meant, we surely had a good time! Not only because they were full of melody but also because we could sense the smiles returning.
Antakshari brought about the high point in today’s class. There was this girl who had hurt herself day before and had been appearing to be very low since then, just something during the game finally got her to smile. Her smile got all the girls excited and soon they all filled the room with their chirpy laughter which was such that even the songs sung by them couldn’t match the magic of their laughter.
Today while walking back to the hostel , Jayasi and I left a little later than usual ,but that didn’t matter, because today we had left the academy with a different feeling , a feeling of contentment , a feeling of satisfaction, something magical.
We had finally seen the girls back with the smiles.
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
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