Promises

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.

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!

We learn by teaching.

I can recall, my teachers saying, “It’s not just you who come here to learn, we learn new things too.” never really understanding what they meant. The fact seemed so meaningless, because at that time for us, our teachers were the ones who knew everything, how can they possibly learn something from us.

But yes, these kids made me realise the meaning of this sentence I have repeatedly heard during my schooling. Yesterday just before we were about to leave, we were waiting outside the girls’ class on the third floor at Deepa Academy to get some data for the manual on basic computers, which Jayasi and I have been working on, from the person who was in charge of computer education at the academy. Seeing no teacher in the class, I entered the class and randomly tried picking up a talk with the girls when something caught my attention. It was a Braille frame and stylus used to write in Braille. I then noticed the huge textbook written in Braille kept in front of each one of them. My curiosity about all the things that I had been observing around them pushed me to ask them to teach me how to read Braille. What followed was unexpected! They all got so bubbly and started assembling around a desk I was standing in front of. All of them started giving their inputs and started trying to explain things to Jayasi and me, telling us that first we need to learn to write then only can we learn to read. Nonetheless, they explained us what it actually is and how can we write and how is it read and before they let us go, we were told to get a pen and paper the next day so that they can help us learn the symbols used while writing in Braille.
All this while, they had sensed our feeling of the task being difficult and consoled us by saying it is very easy and they were just lazy hence they took about 2 years to learn it and we could learn with without any issue.

In the communication skills session, we had the girls talk to us about any one family member of their choice. This time, such a simple topic brought out such deep emotions expressed so simply by them. Most of them spoke about how the family members motivated them to study, encouraged each one of them to be successful and not consider them to be any less!
I salute the family members who have taken the pains to stay away from their children and send them to the city for the first step to live an independent life,to get them educated.

On the Manual front, we have completed the validation work of the content with the girls. Assembling the content, editing and formatting is what takes up most of our time now.

On noticing some girls missing from the class, we got to know that they were busy with some dance practice.  In a while we were informed about the dance routine they were working on for their audition in Chennai. On our walk back to the hostel we noticed them practicing in the lawns, which just got me all excited. It was like I just had to see them. Imagine our disappointment on seeing a lock on the park gate from the inside! We were extremely disappointed on learning about the park being locked. Pleading and requesting the gardener we managed to enter the park and silently observe the routine. It was something extraordinary. The girls were just brilliant. Our efforts to enter the park, our delay in reaching for the lunch at the hostel mess, everything had just paid off. Seeing them dance was something special, something my words fail to express.

A Visit to the Mall

A mall, something that is so common for us, holds immense wonder, curiosity, excitement and joy for the girls at Deepa Academy! Tuesday was “Mall Day” for them as suggested by Mr Shantaram. At 11 o’ clock they all lined up outside the academy, the college-going girls holding the hands of the girls from tenth standard. As they said good bye to Mr Shantaram, he asked them if they knew where they were going. They said in unison, “Orion mall”. When he asked them what it was, they remained silent.

As we walked till the mall, which is about a kilometre and a half from the academy, we could hear the girls giggle nervously as they ignored our calls for talking in English and not in Kannada. I confess, making sure that the girls reach the mall safely got me to be at my alert best! Crossing the road was the biggest task ever; I had to stop the 2-way traffic for 10 seconds so that the girls could cross safely! That day I felt responsible in a different way! 

The security check at the entrance of the mall got the girls to be a little scared; I could see that they did not want to pass through a door which beeped as they walked through it.  Once in though, they couldn’t wait to roam around and explore a ‘huge hall with air conditioning and foreign music’. 
One of the girls with partial vision spotted the escalator and literally started jumping with excitement.  
Others were scared and in doubt, we ourselves suggested that they take the lift, but the girls wouldn't hear of it! They all wanted a go at the moving staircase! 
Their amazement and wonder was worth going up and down 6 times to get them up one by one. Senior girls also assisted in bringing a few of them. 

We walked past big brands all labelled as ‘shops for clothes’. I found myself without an answer when one of the girls asked me why there were so many shops for the same type of clothes. The concept of ‘Brand’ was alien to the little girls who were roaming in the mall in their uniforms. Their simplicity got me to smile. 

Our next stop was the food court for which we took the lift. This wasn’t as exciting as the escalators for them, but fun nevertheless! 
At the food court, after shedding a few layers of shyness, the girls finally told us what they wanted to eat. They went in for things like Chaat, Idli, Dosa, Gobi Manchurian( A favourite this side!), Chilli Chicken and Paani Puri. As they ate, they called Shruti and me to give us small bites from their plates. 
When we suggested that we should leave, they expressed that they wanted to roam around for a while, and that we did. The reactions of people in the mall left me with mixed emotions! While some looked at our group with pity, some laughed! There were some who tried to ignore us after giving a first look, but there were also some who came and congratulated Shruti and me for doing a great job!

The mall also has an adjoining open area which has an artificial lake, our next destination. The wind was perfect and the cloudy sky added on to the beautiful atmosphere which the girls had managed to create. We sat on the benches for a while and just talked about casual things. They told us that they enjoyed coming to the mall and talked about their favourite things. Something about the way they described their favourites gave me a very satisfied feeling. They were improving; they were opening up and were able to talk in full sentences now. Also, our worst fear that the girls would feel out of place at the mall, had finally gone! 

They left with bright smiles as they climbed up the stairs of the academy. We turned back with brighter ones! 

Switching Roles!

“Aka come. Aka please come, nothing will happen “was what the girls were again and again saying to Jayasi and me in order to convince us to try the different swings.
Jayasi and I had decided to take the kids to the park, right opposite Deepa Academy on Thursday. And it sure was a wonderful idea. Not only did that one hour get the girls excited and happy but also this one hour with the kids at the park that day made me look at things differently.
These girls were already so mature, such little girls understood life in a way which probably many of us take a lot of time to and maybe some of us never even do get a chance to understand the life they do, throughout our life.

As soon as we left the academy for the park, amidst the squeals and excitement I noticed that the girls with partial vision had held hands of the ones who have severe problem. They didn’t need our help. They were set to go! And this attitude could be seen even during their play time. Silently they would help them find they way, play games, get on to swings and so on.

On Friday, the morning at Deepa Academy began at a hilarious note when one of the girls forgot her password of the G-Mail account she just had created a day earlier with us, leaving all the other girls in splits, trying their hand at guesses. The rest of time was basically spent in explaining them how to use a G-Mail account and why.

Same day, during the communication skills, we had planned to introduce the girls to the idea of drama. All of them were not really open to the idea of drama and didn’t even know much about it, hence their timid behaviour at the beginning of the class could be explained. But as the time passed by and they got the hang of it they seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly. What we did was switch roles in class and did a scene of how the communication skills class is. All this was done without a prepared script to give them an introduction to this concept. We do plan to do a prepared one in the coming week. Towards the end, while enacting Jayasi and me, the girls introduced some new games they all wanted to play and carried on with several rounds of the same game. It was amazing to see how they picked up the little things we say in class like “Smile” and “No talking in Kannada”( the latter changed to “No talking in Hindi “ :P ) and said it the way we did in regular course of the class. Also very wittily in the end, the girls playing our roles made the class speak on the topic we had given them a day earlier on which they all had to speak at least four lines at the end of the class. So that day the class wasn’t ended by us, it was effectively ended with the girls playing our roles and happily so.

It was a nice day with some of the girls, otherwise silent in the class, trying and making an effort to speak seeing their friends become the teachers for the day(even if it was just a little bit, it was a start! ) I hope they enjoyed the activity as much as we did.

Play Day

At 3: 55 PM today, there were hardly any clouds in the sky and the sun was shining brightly above us. The park just had two or three people sitting in the shade of the trees while the swings were completely deserted. As we walked towards Deepa Academy, I wondered if it was a good idea to get the girls to the park today.

They were already seated when we entered the room, and surprisingly they stood up and greeted us as we came inside. We mentioned the idea of going to the park; brighter smiles and a few squeaks of excitement followed with a lot of clapping!
They held each other’s hands as we got out of the academy and walked towards the park. We could sense their impatience and excitement to reach the swings, as they started walking quickly once they were on the jogging track.
What happened after this . . .

There was laughter, and squeals of joy. They urged us to sit on the swing with them, play with them, go on the slide with them. They sat on the swings and competed on who was going higher, something that got me terribly scared. When I asked them to be careful, I got a reply saying “No worry Akka!”
We watched them play a game in which there is a “denner” who has to run and catch everyone else, who are supposed to be clapping so that the denner knows which way to run.
Watching them laugh, have fun and forget everything else in the world, made me feel nostalgic about my childhood and had me realize the joy little things can hold.

We didn’t realize when it was 5, the girls had to be dropped back at the academy for their evening prayer at 5: 30. We were pretty surprised when they themselves insisted on sitting on the benches with us and talk about their hobbies, a homework which we had given yesterday. Each one said 4-6 lines and wanted us to talk about ours. We could sense how they felt more comfortable with us; they openly asked us questions and joked about my inability to dance!

When we finally left them till the stairs of the academy, each one of them waved back with a huge smile on their faces.
Mission successful! 

Que Sera Sera

"When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be?
Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be!
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be!"


That was what you would have heard the girls sing, if you came to our communication skills class with the tenth standard girls at Deepa Academy around 4 o’clock today. To help them improve English, we had suggested that they listen to some English songs. Being a new thing for them, we had taken some selected songs for them to the class today. The favorite amongst the ones selected was this song Que sera sera sung by Dorris Day.

Never having sung songs before, it was rather surprising that how I didn’t mind singing for the girls and demonstrating how the song should be sung. It was something that came subconsciously just to make the girls comfortable and help them in whatever way I could.

After singing some songs, we had a session on the telephone etiquettes. To make this interesting we had made the paper cup telephone and taken it to the academy. To make the paper cup telephone, take two large paper cups and punch a tiny hole in the centre of the bottom of each with a sewing needle or something similar. Take a piece of non-stretchable thread and thread each end through each hole. Either knot or tape the string so it cannot go back through the hole when the string is stretched.To use the paper cup telephone let two people have a paper cup each and make them stand apart from each other till the string stretches and is absolutely straight. Now if one person talks into one of the cups while the other listens, the second person should be able to hear what the first person says.
With each girl holding paper cups and standing in different rooms with the string joining the paper cups completely stretched, they spoke to each other and us taking turns as if it was a real telephone. Initially shy to talk to us using the new instrument they got, they took no time getting acquainted with the paper cup telephone and making it their new toy to talk amongst themselves.


In the morning session we covered the basics of internet. The eagerness to learn all that they could, gave us a different sense of contentment. We were glad they were bubbling with excitement and wanted to learn all that they could. While some of them opened Deepa Academy’ s website and then tried navigating through it to reach the gallery and see if there were any photographs with them dancing or singing ,some others were super excited to use the E-mail, make their own E- mail accounts and understand how to send and receive mails.

Time flew by, we wanted to tell them as much as we could. But somewhere we knew learning about the Internet is not easy for them. It is very easy for them to get lost between the numerous buttons, links and options the browser offers. We had to give them time.So we had to stop, even though their eagerness to learn made us want to keep going.

Seeing these girls, Jayasi and I knew we had a lot of homework to do, but that never bogged us down, just pepped us up and raised our spirits to work harder and find out the best possible way for them to access the internet despite the given restrictions.

Happy Hour

After an exciting weekend in Coorg, staying in the luxuries of a hotel with no worries of washing clothes or mopping the room, one would imagine that getting back in routine would take time and would get us cribbing. But just the opposite happened.
As soon as we entered the room, I had the broom in my hand while Shruti did the dusting! We couldn’t wait to get all tidy so that we could work upon our plans with the girls for the following day.

The computer session in the morning went well. We started with Internet and were glad to see the amount of interest the girls showed in learning it. When we asked one of them to take rest since she was unwell, she refused, explaining that she had limited time with us and didn’t want to miss out. It is this spirit of theirs which I truly respect.

At 4 o clock, we were waiting in the usual room eager to finally meet the girls after the weekend.
It was 04 : 07 when we finally heard the pleasing sound of the payal which most of the girls wear. The sound became lesser as they neared the classroom indicating that they were standing outside. It was then, when one of them peeped in and smiled broadly when we asked her to come inside.
The atmosphere of the room suddenly changed as the eight of them came in, greeting us with a warm smile! We talked about their weekend and told them about ours. They happily described how they had had a visit to the temple and had sung songs there.
We went on to discuss the importance of English language, one of the main reasons being that the screen reader which they use for learning computers, speaks out in English. All of them told us that they wanted to learn proper English and even recited a poem for us. Most of them blushed when we told them how good they were with the recitation.
After they promised that they would strictly converse in English from 10 : 30 to 11 : 30 pm, we asked them, on a lighter note, if they knew what a ‘kachori’ was.
It is a north Indian snack, and none of them had even heard of it. When we handed one to each, they seemed shy and even confused about how to eat it. Some broke it and ate, while a few nibbled on it. It was funny to hear their mispronunciation of the word ‘kachori’.
But after they finished it, they thanked us and conveyed that they liked it.

Pallavi, one of the shy ones in class, took out her little hen doll and we had a little puppet play with it. Everyone laughed as we all played with the doll, their pure smiles filling us with emotions indescribable.
The one hour spent with the girls in the evening gets over before I know it, and is my personal *Happy Hour* of the day!

We completed two weeks today, but it seems that I’ve known each one of them since a lifetime.