The school-year in India began on Monday - so did the rains. Children wearing prim and pressed school uniforms have emerged from nowhere in hundreds and thousands. They run around, jump in the puddles, they hold hands and walk to school. They hang on the edges of the train and bus to get wet in the pouring rain and for a second, I see no worry on their faces - no regrets, no hesitation, no complaints. I wish I could be more like them.
The school-year at Parivartan began on Tuesday. However, the only attendees were a group of 10-12 boys and girls. The teacher told me that the other children are still registering. I wonder when school will really begin, when children will begin to come consistently, when I will finally be able to apply the curriculum that Kayla and I have put together. And then Kayla points out to me that so much of what we are used to, so much of what we have planned depends on consistency. Consistency in the number of children that come, consistency in the amount of time that they can spend with us, consistency in the days that the teachers are available. Consistency which probably will never be granted to us. It's a discouraging thought, but there is no way around it. So we decide that we will begin the activities we have planned for the day. We do a brief stretching warm-up and then ask them to make name-tags. We ask them to write their names in both Hindi and English. Some kids ask for help in writing their names in English, while others ask for help in writing Hindi. A little boy, Dinesh, after asking me to write his name in English, asks me to decorate his name-tag. I laugh and tell him that I cannot make his name-tag for him. Dinesh, as I have come to understand over the past week, is one of the most creative boys in the class. He can make cobras, hats, boats, back-packs, and more out of a single sheet of newspaper. It is fascinating to watch him go! I wish all kids knew that their work is more creative, more original, and more imaginative than anything an adult could come up with - it is untouched by this corrupted world.
While I sit to make a name-tag of my own, I find myself talking to a brilliant young girl - Saiyma. Her confidence and creativity in class inspires the younger children to step forward with their thoughts, not to mention, she is quite an actress! I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up. She tells me, "what can I do? There is going to be so much work at home, and my parents wouldn't let me study to be anything." She goes on to tell me about her family - her younger sister, her mother and father, and the brother that she lost to illness. She says that it hurts her to see other girls with their brothers and wishes hers were still there with her. Then she says, "Didi (elder sister), when you grow up and become a doctor, will you start a hospital for poor people - for people who can't go to the other hospital because they can't afford it?" At that moment, I couldn't think - I couldn't analyze, I couldn't be practical, I couldn't say no. So I said I would. I would for her, for her brother, for all the other Saiymas in this world who love to learn, smile, and laugh. Even before Saiyma asked me that question, it was my dream to be able to help those who have limited access to health care. Every summer I would come to visit Parivartan, I would look at the little kids sitting at school and learning, and I would know that at least one of them would contract a serious illness by the end of the monsoon season. It was difficult to understand, even for me, that the very rains I danced in, were responsible for the sea of disease that would wash over the slum area like a tidal wave. A sea of diseases, that most of us have had the privilege to not be exposed to. Today, when I look at Saiyma, when I look at Dinesh, and at Ruksar, Fatima, Aissa, Rahul, and Afreen, I feel overwhelming joy to be part of their learning process - to cause one of them to laugh, to dream, to think. I know that when I leave this world and come back to my own, they will all be in my thoughts -Dinesh, folding his paper cobras, Ruksar trying to learn English, Fatima reenacting a scene from Sholay. And I know that like them, there are millions of others - each unique, each brilliant. And, lastly, I know that if I did nothing at all in the future to keep their creativity, their love, their happiness alive, I would never be able to truly fulfill my dreams.
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