Wednesday and Thursday, everyone from the ‘Deepa Academy family’
would be going out for a trip to an adventure camp located around 50 kms from
Bangalore. Shruti and I are the newest members of that family.
When we first heard the news, we were anxious. Things like how the place would be, how we would be travelling, how safe would it be, were bothering us.
Then? We had the Monday class; the first class of our last week in Bangalore.
When we first heard the news, we were anxious. Things like how the place would be, how we would be travelling, how safe would it be, were bothering us.
Then? We had the Monday class; the first class of our last week in Bangalore.
That day, they entered the class with happy faces loaded
with questions for us.
After we discussed about how our weekends went by, pointing to them their improvement in English and formation of sentences, we started talking about what the girls had learnt over the past three and a half weeks which they spent with us.
They knew we were leaving soon and finally asked us, exactly when. We quietly answered with a ‘This Sunday’.
Nobody spoke.
“Akka, why do you have to go back to Delhi?”
I sat there with my head bent low, not able to give a suitable answer to that question.
“Will you be coming back next year?”
I promised myself that I would. They smiled, differently this time.
Shruti and I decided to bring up the topic of the trip to lighten the mood a little. We asked them if they knew where they were going and got answers like “climbing mountain” and “playing in river”. When we told them that we will all have fun together, they looked puzzled. One of them asked, “Akka, you are coming with us? “. I swear, I had not even completed the word “Yes” when all of them started clapping and went into an excited “Yayyyyyyy!” together. ALL of them!
Both of us were dazed.
That was something unexpected, but something which made us realize that this trip was a wonderful opportunity which we had got to spend more time with the girls.
We started talking about the things that they will be carrying along on the trip with them. The conversation steered with us asking them what chocolates they liked to eat. Each one of them mentioned their favourites and asked us about ours. We sat and discussed about other random things for a while, laughing and joking together. They told us about each other’s nick names; Chuttu and Buttu were the funniest ones!
I felt content looking at each one of them, the improvement from the starting of our internship was evident. They tried to use English sentences, even though the struggled with the formation of words, they had started trying. They talked about themselves more openly now and their shyness was slowly disappearing.
It was 5 : 23 PM when we realized that we had extended the class! But the girls didn’t get up to leave when we mentioned the time, “We don’t want to go” is what they told us!
Both of us could only smile.
We asked them if we could bring some of their favourite eatables for the trip, to which they all declined. Then all of a sudden they started talking in Kannada! Shruti and I tried to get them to talk in English, but the only part of the reply we understood was “One minute!”
Then one of the girls said nervously, “There is one thing that we want, but you will have to promise us that you will have to give us that! “
We insisted on knowing what they wanted before promising, but they wouldn’t hear of it. After Shruti and I had repeated after them “I promise I will give you what you want”, they said, “We want your mobile phone numbers”.
I’m going to miss these girls.
But as of now, there is a trip I am looking forward to!
After we discussed about how our weekends went by, pointing to them their improvement in English and formation of sentences, we started talking about what the girls had learnt over the past three and a half weeks which they spent with us.
They knew we were leaving soon and finally asked us, exactly when. We quietly answered with a ‘This Sunday’.
Nobody spoke.
“Akka, why do you have to go back to Delhi?”
I sat there with my head bent low, not able to give a suitable answer to that question.
“Will you be coming back next year?”
I promised myself that I would. They smiled, differently this time.
Shruti and I decided to bring up the topic of the trip to lighten the mood a little. We asked them if they knew where they were going and got answers like “climbing mountain” and “playing in river”. When we told them that we will all have fun together, they looked puzzled. One of them asked, “Akka, you are coming with us? “. I swear, I had not even completed the word “Yes” when all of them started clapping and went into an excited “Yayyyyyyy!” together. ALL of them!
Both of us were dazed.
That was something unexpected, but something which made us realize that this trip was a wonderful opportunity which we had got to spend more time with the girls.
We started talking about the things that they will be carrying along on the trip with them. The conversation steered with us asking them what chocolates they liked to eat. Each one of them mentioned their favourites and asked us about ours. We sat and discussed about other random things for a while, laughing and joking together. They told us about each other’s nick names; Chuttu and Buttu were the funniest ones!
I felt content looking at each one of them, the improvement from the starting of our internship was evident. They tried to use English sentences, even though the struggled with the formation of words, they had started trying. They talked about themselves more openly now and their shyness was slowly disappearing.
It was 5 : 23 PM when we realized that we had extended the class! But the girls didn’t get up to leave when we mentioned the time, “We don’t want to go” is what they told us!
Both of us could only smile.
We asked them if we could bring some of their favourite eatables for the trip, to which they all declined. Then all of a sudden they started talking in Kannada! Shruti and I tried to get them to talk in English, but the only part of the reply we understood was “One minute!”
Then one of the girls said nervously, “There is one thing that we want, but you will have to promise us that you will have to give us that! “
We insisted on knowing what they wanted before promising, but they wouldn’t hear of it. After Shruti and I had repeated after them “I promise I will give you what you want”, they said, “We want your mobile phone numbers”.
I’m going to miss these girls.
But as of now, there is a trip I am looking forward to!
Wow! Looks like you had a great time at the camp "Xtreme zone" with the girls from Deepa. It is inspiring to hear how the girls took on the various activities at the camp with a sense of challenge. It really looks like you and Jayasi are having a wonderful time at Deepa giving and taking from the various experiences.I am sure both of you must be having a tough time saying goodbye to the team at Deepa. Waiting to read more...
ReplyDeleteNisha