The Child’s Voice in India

by Keya Mitra

As a Fulbright Scholar in India I returned to the country in which my parents were born.  It was the first time since elementary school when I visited Kolkata with my family, and I was struck by the sensory stimulation I experienced on a daily basis.

A drive on any busy street impresses upon you the omnipresence of noise in every major city--autorickshaws, pedestrians, and taxis are constantly at battle with one another.  Lanes prove to be weak disciplinarians, meekly encouraging boundaries but unable to enforce them.  Horns perpetually sound, and homeless children weave expertly through traffic at stoplights and shout well-rehearsed lines at your window, commanding your attention as they perform acrobatic tricks.

I found myself exhilarated by the hoards of people soaking in the Ganges during a 5 a.m. boat ride in Varanasi, the sonorous chanting during a pilgrimage to Amristar’s Golden Temple at dawn, and the millions of people jamming Kolkata’s streets during Durga Puja, the world’s largest outdoor festival.

It seems nearly impossible to remove yourself at times from the constant assault of noise, the simultaneously joyful and exhausting experience of traveling through India.  Amid the chaos defining the streets of India, the schools and organizations in New Delhi, Kolkata, and Bangalore where I volunteered with underprivileged children became virtual sanctuaries of peace and inspiration.

My Fulbright project wasn’t directly related to children: for my book I researched my grandfather’s memoir in which he writes about his experience of being mistaken for a spy and held captive by soldiers in Hyderabad when the Seventh Nizam tried to secede from the newly independent India, and the Indian government took police action against Hyderabad.  In my book I juxtapose my grandfather’s narrative with my own experiences as an Indian-American exploring the same landscapes in India that my grandfather writes about from the perspective of an outsider.

My work with children during my time in India allowed me to write about the cultural barriers I experienced as an Indian-American trying to communicate on some occasions with children who spoke only Hindi or Bengali and brought me continual inspiration and joy.

In Kolkata, I found myself constantly amazed by the children in the Rainbow program at Loreto Sealdah School.  Most of these children lived on the streets or in a large shelter on the top floor of the school containing over a hundred beds.  Their belongings were scarce—often limited to one or two outfits and basic school supplies—and yet they would constantly try to give me and other volunteers their whittled down pencils or scraps of paper as gifts.  When we completed art projects, all the children would invariably return their paintings or drawings to me, eager for me to share their work with American students.

In the Rainbow program the children living in the shelter or on the streets are frequently tutored by older students at Loreto school, and the mornings I visited the school I would find children clustered around thirteen or fourteen year old girls patiently teaching them.  This desire to help others extended to the Rainbow children as well; often I would arrive with an art lesson prepared only to find myself jotting down notes as a three-year-old helped me with my Bengali pronunciation. During my time at Loreto I wrote a great deal about my experience as an Indian-American trying to overcome language barriers and ultimately learning more from the Rainbow children than I could possibly hope to teach them.

My experience in New Delhi was equally inspiring.  At Udayan Care, orphaned or abused children live in “ghars” or homes consisting of anywhere between three and twenty-two children, a caretaker, and mentor mothers.  I volunteered at the Sant Nagar Ghar, where I had the pleasure of working with thirteen talented and vivacious girls.  Despite living in a crowded environment (a well-furnished but small two-bedroom home), the children and caretaker operated as a family, constantly encouraging and motivating one another when it came to their studies.  I was amazed at the amount of free time the children devoted to studying and learning, and the energy the founder of the organization, Dr. Kiran Modi, the mentor mothers, and the caretakers put into raising the children.

During the second half of my grant I volunteered at Shanti Bhavan, a school located in a village just outside of Bangalore, for a short time—less than a month--but the resilience and compassion of the children and staff deeply impacted me.  Shanti Bhavan is a remarkably beautiful and serene place.  The word Shanti literally means peace, and the school is situated on a campus removed from the bustle and noise of city life.  The architecture of the school emphasizes openness and light—the classrooms don't have doors, and the first floor has a section without a roof, allowing a copious amount of light into the building.  This openness reflects the nature of the education the students receive; while they are taught strong values from an early age, they are also given the room to grow as individuals.

Shanti Bhavan (founded by entrepreneur and humanitarian Dr. Abraham George) takes in children of three-and-a-half to four years of age who belong to families working as ragpickers—low-caste individuals who make a living by picking through garbage to recover tiny pieces of metal—laborers, and coolies.  Despite their backgrounds, however, the children are startlingly optimistic and gracious.  My third night at the school, I ate with a group of second graders who were playing the “secret game” (known in America as “telephone”) in which a “secret” was whispered around the table and the last person who heard it usually got a very different version than the initial secret.  Among the secrets the children told: “Every day is a good day” and “I love my second-grade dorm”.

During my time at the school I never saw a student waste food or paper—they scraped their plates clean during every meal and used every centimeter of available space in their notebooks.

In addition to demonstrating a very real awareness of the scarcity of their resources, the children were tremendously inquisitive.  While they have access to computers and television in their spare time, they are not surrounded by IPods, cell phones, video games, or the Internet, and the absence of distractions seems to contribute to their focus, creativity, and originality.  In their spare time the children play outdoors, making up their own games and plays, and read books.  The staff and teachers at the school were no less impressive than the children; many worked for very little money and were so dedicated to the school that they at times lived apart from spouses and family so they could continue working for Shanti Bhavan.

During my time at Shanti Bhavan (as well as the brief period during which I taught classes in creative writing at Loreto Sealdah in Kolkata), I found myself repeatedly grateful for my training and experience at Writers in the Schools.  I taught English, literature, and creative writing to multiple grade levels at Shanti Bhavan, and I frequently used lessons that fellow WITS writers had shared with me or that I had designed for my classes at WITS.  One of the most effective lessons for all grade levels was the “I am from . . . “ writing activity based on the poem by George Ella Lyon and used time and time again by WITS teachers. Drawing upon my WITS experience of putting together an anthology for every classroom, I put together a book of the students’ work at Shanti Bhavan at the end of my stay at the school. A seventh-grader at the school wrote a beautiful poem based on the “I am from” WITS lesson:

Shanti Bhavan

I am from a village so poor,
A place which is a closed door,
a closed door from the city,
a place that seems so tasty.

I am from a place, a rural one,
a fatherless son.
I am from a place more unique than some.

But at present I am in a place,
full of beauty,
so much amazement,
and so much more than the world outside,
in which I was so used to slide,
from one house to another,
as a cow sheds its leather.

Now I'm so free from the world outside,
in peace and comfort.

By: Aishwarya
Grade VII
Shanti Bhavan

The children I worked with in Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata reminded me of the liberation we experience through recording and giving voice to human experience.  Their observations and writing broadened the scope of my world, and only strengthened my belief in the importance of children’s writing, both for the young authors themselves and those of us lucky to read their work.