Old Life

Today, to borrow Monu’s phrase, old life start, a week late. Mr Roland goes to the office (albeit in a playing-out shirt, because he’s only going to say his goodbyes and collect his tea-cup), and I go to Mankhurd, in the hope of a bit of normality, on the straw mats, in the upstairs room.

Bhavika’s late, so we play Hangman until she arrives. I’m quietly confident, with my fourteen-letter word, and indeed, my chalk-man is dangling, with only one leg to go, but I’m reckoning without Swapnil (Prime Minister of India, circa 2045). He springs into the air from a cross-legged start (you try it), shouting, “RESPONSIBILITY, didi!” How can you not be impressed?

Bhavika arrives, and tries to slip in behind Anand and Kajal, who are also late. I’m not having this.
“Bhavika-didi, you are late! Go stand at the back, take your punishment!”
“Shall didi stand here, she is late?” Bhavika asks, laughing. “Come Anand, come Kajal, stand at the back with me, we must take our punishment...” The children drum their heels on the floor, for joy, and I realise, that’s what I’ve not done for five days, smile...

“What did you see, on the television news, this weekend?” Bhavika asks. Khaja – never loath to be first – is on his feet, spraying the class with imaginary bullets, before she gets to the question-mark. I don’t think on-the-doorstep terrorism’s any more real to them, than James Bond or Harry Potter, they’ll certainly not be in need of counselling. Older, wiser, we didis exchange scandalised looks, before we turn to composition.

Bhavika says her aunt and family live near the Taj (“this hotel, backside”) and hear every last bullet and grenade, of the three-day siege. I practically need sedating, watching it all play out on television, fifteen miles away: having live action at the bottom of the garden doesn’t bear thinking about. Mumbaikars are clearly made of sterner stuff, and pride themselves on their resilience: within hours, cafes, shops, offices, are all open again. On Friday, a hawker looks sadly at the empty street, as the traffic-lights wink pointlessly through their sequence. “I’m just waiting for a traffic-jam,” he says, “then I can sell my flowers.” His roses wilt, unsold, so the terrorists find their mark, here, too. Today, though, he’s poking bundles of flowers, scented with exhaust-fumes, through open car-windows, and the world’s the right way up, again.

Ashish pushes his book onto my lap. “My name is Ashish,” he writes. “I am a boy. I stay with my family.” So far, so good. His next sentence leaps off the page at me - “My Akanksha is war.” Maybe he is traumatised, after all? I read on. “My didi is war nes. Caroline-didi is war nes.” He beams at me, “I no help, didi – one star?” Bhavika, cruel but fair, only rewards DIY work. He reads aloud. “My didi is very nice....” So, not psychologically scarred by atrocity, after all. Relieved, I draw him a turtle and a milk-bottle (his request) to go with his star. Ashish is war nes, too.

The politicians continue to wrangle and snipe, but there’s no hope of their being stopped by Black Cat commandos. The latest SMS doing the rounds says, “Don’t be afraid of the men who got in with boats, fear the men who got in with the votes.” I fail to understand all the retrospective finger-pointing, about slack security, sea-side, at the Gateway – even Swapnil could have worked this one out. The little boats jockey for position in the harbour, and tourists pile on to the nearest one, until the plimsoll-line disappears, then it chugs away, grating along the seawall, ricocheting off neighbouring boats, whose crew fend it off, with their bare feet. Organised, it isn’t. Ticket vendors at the top of the steps have no allegiance to any particular boat, no one counts passengers on or off. Crisp-sellers, chai-wallahs, sun-hat merchants, all follow you on board, wheedling, cajoling, haranguing, and have to take a running leap at the disappearing harbour steps, as the boat pulls away, belching diesel fumes. You could smuggle in a bull elephant wearing a golden howdah, and no-one would blink twice. It makes a mockery of all the metal-detector doorways, and the mirrors on sticks, land-side. Small wonder they landed an arsenal, unchecked.

“Mumbai safe,” says Monu, stoutly, although his Mum wants him back in Lucknow, NOW. Being mobile again’s something of a novelty, so we drive to one of our early haunts, in Mulund, for a bit of affirming retail. On the way home, the opposite carriageway’s at a stand-still, blocked by dozens of men, marching in their shirt-sleeves. It looks like a political demonstration, and I’m about to duck, in case tempers are raw, when Monu says, “This funeral. You know, policeman, killed in troubles? This his funeral, local people come.” Behind the marching men, in their off-white shirts, a tow-truck, strung with orange flowerheads. Men in the cab, men on the cab, men in the truck-bed, keeping company with the departed, under his blanket of marigolds.

By the roadside, posters showing cameos of five of the officers who died last week, asking for contributions to help the bereaved families, in the hope of offering them each Rs 15 lakh. I’m sure they’d rather have their Dad back, than a twenty-thousand pound bonus, but it’s a good thought, and Mumbai’s digging deep.

Despite which, I come home tonight feeling saner and more whole. The past five days have been wall-to-wall bullets and blood, desecration, death, man’s inhumanity to man - and while they are part of life, they are not all of life. I just remembered that, in Mankhurd.

Happy Baal Diwas!

Nikita invitingly pats the space next to her, on the mat, in the upstairs room, at Mankhurd, so I sit down beside her. She smiles, and sighs, and leans against my knee. I could sit here forever.

Bhavika’s catechizing the assembled troops, meanwhile.
“Whose birthday is it today?”
“Chacha Nehru!”
“Right, Chacha Nehru! What is Chacha Nehru’s other name?” This one creates a ripple of dismay, and I have every sympathy. I know the answer, but I can’t get my tongue round it, either, even if you write it in four-inch capitals on a piece of paper, and stuff it into my fist, so I’m not rating their chances.
“Chacha Nehru is...... Jawaharlal Nehru. Who is he?”
“Jawaharlal Nehru!” No one else on the floor seems to find this unpronounceable, now they’ve had a steer from didi. Just me, then. I’ll stick to Pandit, I decide.
“And who was Jawaharlal Nehru?... He was the first Prime Minister of India! What was he?”
“First Prime Minister!” At least one person’s listening.
“Well done, Swapnil!” (Wouldn’t you know? With a bit of luck and a following wind, Swapnil will be Prime Minister himself, one of these days.) “Of which country was he Prime Minister?”
“India, didi, India!” Politicians can’t all be bad, it seems to me.
“And what did Chacha Nehru love?... He loved children. What did he love?”
“Children!”
“So what is his birthday, what do we say, Chacha Nehru’s birthday is.....?”
“Children’s Day!” We all smile so much, our teeth go dry, congratulating ourselves.
“So didi has brought cake!” The mats fizz with joy, and everyone’s tidy padmasan falls apart. Cake.

“Who will have cake, yes or no?” No-one has much of a problem, working this one out.

We’ve only just got over Diwali fireworks, and now it’s Baal Diwas, Children’s Day. It’s not news to me, they’ve been advertising it on the tv, all week, promoting a day-long cartoon orgy for all the family. And on the way into school this morning, we pass a fairy princess in a spangly crown, trying to tame her frothy layers of tulle and wave her wand at the same time, as she trips along at her mother’s sari-end. She strikes an incongruously exquisite note, in the detritus of the gutter, which laps at her tiny slippered feet.

The rest of the world celebrates Children’s Day on 20th November, but India makes a bid for independence, and lights her fireworks a week early, on Nehru’s birthday. It’s nearly fifty years since he died, but all the children of India still call him “Uncle” – Chacha Nehru.

“Celebrate Baal Diwas!” cajoles the poster on the hoarding by the link road. “Banish child labour!” A sobering thought, amid all the balloons and chocolate bars. “Make Children’s Day happy for all children.” If only. One of the cuties, on the mats, here at Akanksha, was found abandoned, two or three days old, in a dustbin, by the woman he thinks is his mother. It’s all I can do, not to package him up and mail him to myself, in the UK.

At the traffic-lights, Monu points to a child, hobbling down the central reservation, his foot swathed in filthy bandages, a padded crutch under each arm.

“See this boy?” We both watch him hop-skipping along, for a moment. “His foot complete.” So, the dressing and the crutches are his professional props? Monu nods. “See, this girl, too.” And sure enough, there’s his sister, equally misfortunate in the matter of sound limbs, crutches flailing. I say, someone should tell them to work different sets of traffic-lights, they add nothing to each other’s credibility. Unless they’re just a really accident-prone family. Still, I don’t expect there’ll be much in the way of Baal Diwas cake, doing the rounds, on the pavement where they live, tonight.

In our Values lesson, we’re doing Respect. What is respectful, what is disrespectful.
“If you want didi to teach you something, do you say, “Didi, teach it!””
“Yes!” says Sachin, and he’s right, that’s exactly what he does, except in mime. More exactly, he pokes you with his book, and pushes everyone else’s book off your knee, then pinches your arm, to make sure you understand. That’s Sachin’s normal MO.
“You will say, “Teach me!”?” says Bhavika-didi, scandalised. Sachin loves either/or questions, because when he gets it wrong, there’s only one answer left, and it’s always the right one.
“No, didi!” he bellows, and looks round for applause. He’s sweet, really.

We write respect words in our English note-books. Sorry. Please. Thank you. Excuse me. Not for the first time, I wish I had a video-camera, to make a salutary short, for Year 9 Citizenship Lessons, in the UK. Come to think of it, some of the favoured sons and daughters of leafy Powai could do with a bit of revision, in this module, too. At the swimming-pool, I’m just dripping towards the changing-rooms, when a boy of about twelve hurtles round the corner, and cannons into me. Without looking at me, or missing a step, he scrambles on. “Excuse me!” I say in my loudest, school-missiest, most sarcastic voice. “That’s ok!” he says, airily, over his shoulder. Indignation, more strong than a belt in the solar plexus, quite vanquishes me.

Meanwhile, Bhavika’s waxing warm to her theme.
“When Caroline-didi gives you little bottles of shampoo and soap, do you take one and say, “Didi, I have no gift!” – is that what you should do?” I think of the free shop, disappearing hand over fist, last lesson, and wonder if this rings a bell with anyone.
“Yes, didi!” says Khaja the Snitch. “Sonal, two soap!” He tugs on my sleeve, and points at Sonal, who pulls a face and turns away. Either she’s innocent as charged, or she doesn’t understand. It has to be said, her English isn’t that hot, though. “Hair-comb, didi, me?” Khaja croons, his nose pressed to mine. Forget thirty pieces of silver, the price of this super-grass is a plastic comb. I harden my heart, and refuse. I would give this child the sun, moon and stars, if I could find a piece of wrapping-paper big enough, but he’s not having a comb, today.

Before we go home, a game. We split into three: Team Sachin, Team Salim and Team Ashish. Each round, a player is nominated, who chooses which level question he wants, worth 10, 20, 30 or 50 points. After two turns, caution goes out of the window with no glass, and everyone’s bidding for tops.
“For fifty points, if I have ten sweets, then I get five more – wait, I haven’t finished, keep it in your head – then I give ten to my Mother, how many sweets do I have?” I hold my breath, but Khaja doesn’t.
“Five sweets!” Team Ashish do a war-dance of victory.

Swapnil goes for broke, too.
“If I have twenty-five sweets, and I want to give forty, how many sweets do I need?” He’s allowed to do it on the board, instead of the back of his eyelids, but even then has to have three goes, to get to fifteen. It’s not the maths lacking, it’s the nerve, but perhaps he should think of an alternative to the premiership, by way of career.

It’s looking like a walk-over for Team Ashish, raking in fifty after fifty. Then Khaja gets a ten-point penalty for dancing up and down to distract Rahul, so the race is on again.

It all hinges on Kunda, the last question of the last round. She’s a wobbly ten-point person, at heart, but she’s carried away by the madness of it all, and bids wildly for fifty. Didi writes “-ag,” “-ot,” and “-ip” on the board, and Kunda has to find three words for each. She’s thinking about it. I have to gag Naina with one hand and Khaja with the other, as Kunda begins to write “tag” in uneven nano-letters. By the time she gets to the last column, we’re all miming “sip” or “dip” or “pip” like it was New Year’s Charades, but she has her own ideas, and finally writes “lip,” bagging fifty for the team.

Final scores: Sachin’s team - 230; Salim’s team – 190; Ashish’s team – 240. Much cheering and laughter. No-one says, “My question was harder than hers!” or “He had help with his!” and mostly they don't say, “It’s not fair!” - so the respect lesson is well learned. I don’t know that the dangerous ten-point dock has taught Khaja anything about sitting-down and shutting-up, but the whole world’s out there, waiting to knock the stuffing out of him, there’s time yet for a bit of irrepressible joie de vivre.

Kunda’s so overwhelmed by her success, she gives me her cake, on the way out. She’s had a baby brother and a brutal haircut in the same week, I’m surprised she can still spell her own name. I put the cake back in her hand, and she gives me a shy smile.
“Happy Children’s Day, Kunda!”
“Thank-you, didi!” she says, and scampers off down the stairs.

Because You're Worth It

When I slide into my seat today, on the floor next to Aanchal and Kunda, we’re doing subtraction. (I called them take-aways until I was in senior school, but there’s no such namby-pambying here. When we do fractions, in Mankhurd, we do numerators over denominators, no less. The kids aren’t the only ones on the floor to learn something that day...) So, forty-one minus seventeen, then.

“Where do we start, with the ones, or with the tens?” Bhavika asks. The general consensus of opinion on the mats, is that we start with the ones. “Which is greater, one or seven? Seven, right... So can we take seven from one?” Rahul, who has been watching an ant on the floor, not the writing on the wall, accidentally says, “Yes!” and Bhavika pounces.

“Yes, Rahul? We can take seven from one?” Rahul casts about him for moral support, or just a clue as to which way to jump.

“No!” Swapnil says, helpfully. Bhavika’s eagle eye swivels to Swapnil.

“And you are Rahul, no?” She switches the heat back to Rahul. “One is greater than seven, Rahul, yes or no?” Rahul back-pedals furiously, “No, didi!” – and we’re on track again.

“We cannot take seven from one, so what do we do? We go to the tens place, and we say, “Can we borrow some?” – Ashish, do we borrow one, or do we borrow ten?”

“One!” says Ashish. Bhavika’s voice drops an octave, into tragedy.

“We borrow one?”

“No, ten, didi, ten!” Seven voices from the floor. Take-aways were never this dramatic, in my day. It’s King Lear and Aladdin rolled into one, in Room 112.

“So we put ten here, in the ones place. Now we have ten plus one, what do we have?.... Accha, eleven. And here in the tens place, we take away the four, and we put?... Three!” It’s a triumph.

The next bit’s my favourite, I could watch them do this all day.

“And now we have eleven, and we have to take seven. Put seven in your head, and count to eleven.” The young mathematicians smack themselves roundly on the temple, inserting the seven, then count forward to eleven, on their fingers. Then they count their fingers, to get the difference.

“Four, didi, four!” Bhavika pretends to put four in the tens column, to see who’s awake, but no-one’s napping now. The climax is on the horizon, galloping towards us.

“And one from three is? ... Two! So the whole answer is? .... Twenty-four, right?” I feel a round of applause coming on. Maths have never made me laugh out loud before.

These children are six, seven, eight years old, and they’re doing all the functions – adding, subtracting, carrying one - in a foreign language. I don’t think Ofsted have a category called “Tour de Force” but that’s where Bhavika belongs. I can’t wait to do goes-intos, after Diwali.


Khaja’s first past the post with his finished worksheet, as ever, so while the others are still
wrestling with ascending and descending order, he chooses “Rabbit Gets Lost” for a reading book. I point out Rabbit’s chums, Piglet, Pooh and Tigger. He patiently corrects me, “No Tigger, didi, Tiger!” so I let him have the right of it. In a wanton moment, I explain what “bounce” means, and Khaja leaps off like a frog on a rocket, going “Boing!” and landing on anyone too mathematically distracted to move out of his way. “Quiet reading” has no meaning, here.

Libraries should chuck out their “SILENCE!” signs, and tackle literature with Khaja’s zest. I bet it’d get A A Milne’s vote. Go and have a quick flick through “Rabbit Gets Lost” and count the bounces and boings. It’s a serious workout, for active readers, but by the time the happy ending rolls round, Khaja’s energy’s not even dinted. He’s not unlike Tigger, in fact. I mean, Tiger.

“I have some good news,” Bhavika says. “We have the results of the Akanksha assessments today. In English, our centre got 79%! Is that good, yes or no?” We all clap. "And in Maths, we got 89%! What do we say?"

“Thank-you, didi! Thank-you!” they chorus.

“No, we don't say thank-you! We say, HURRAH!!!” So we all cheer, and shout “hurrah!” and punch the air, like we’ve just won an Olympic Gold, and why not? – I’d like a re-run of results day, in the school hall, in August. There should definitely have been more hurrahs.

Down to earth with a bump, Bhavika has to warn the children about playing alone in the compound. A brother and sister have been murdered, and their kidneys harvested, in Mankhurd. I mention it to Monu, horrified, and he says in Malad, where he lives, three people – two adults, one child – have died the same way. It doesn’t bear belief. “If someone you don’t know offers you a chocolate, what must you say?.... No!”

They know me, however, so I’m allowed to give them gifts. On our Kerala trip, Melanie-Ma’am and I scoop up the rows of little bottles of shampoo and shower-gel, in the free shop - ie the bathrooms of all the smart hotels we stay in. Today, I bring our booty-bag to school, for sharing. I’m not sure Khaja and co, with their petal-soft cheeks, will be needing the shaving-kit any time soon, so I take it out, to give to Monu instead.

If you’ve ever felt a frisson of disappointment, opening your fourth bottle of bubble bath on Christmas Day, you need to come to Mankhurd, with your fists full of soap, to find out how fascinating toiletries can be, with the right mind-frame. We have some energetic mimes, of what talc and toothbrushes might be for, but body lotion requires more than re-enactment, it needs authenticity. I open a bottle, dab some on my wrist, and rub it in. A forest of skinny brown arms appears before me, and soon we’re all silkily fragrant. The boys sniff their arms, and do backward rolls of ecstasy. It’s funny, the point of body lotion passes me by, until today. There should be a re-cycling scheme, for hotel toiletries, it would make more of a difference to the world, than nobly using the same towels, two days in a row.

“Join your hands, fold your legs, close your eyes,” says Bhavika. Time for prayers. They thank God for the world so sweet, and run out, laughing and dancing, into the sunshine of the slums, their hotel freebies clutched in their hands. Who needs the perfumes of Arabia?

Songs of Praise

In the middle of the road through Parkside, the no-lakh housing estate, cheek-by-jowl with leafy Powai, the newspaper vendor has his pitch. He sits on the crumbling wall, separating the two carriageways, with tuk-tuks zooming or not-zooming by his ears, and sells his papers through car-windows as they stop and start by, or to pedestrians prepared to zig-zag across impatient morning traffic. He’s one of the landmarks I use, to pin down the unstable geography, which is Mumbai, in my head. He’s also my barometer. On a sunny day, he fans his papers out, along the wall in front of him, for ease of choosing. On an uncertain day, they’re stacked, between his knees, under a plastic sheet, and you have to know what you’re asking for; no mooching. Today, he’s not even there. Serious sou’wester weather ahead, then.

As we leave Powai, there’s a man taking his dog for a walk, in the rain. A honey Labrador, wearing a blue raincoat. A minute down the road, in Parkside, I see a child dressed in a supermarket carrier-bag, holding the hand of an even tinier boy, wearing nothing but a piece of string, for a loincloth. All of life rolls by our window.

At school, we can’t concentrate, because of Ganesh. Not that religious fervour has elbowed fractions and dictation out of everyone’s mind, it’s the music. In the courtyard, framed by the four tenement blocks, a pandal has been erected, amid all the flotsam and jetsam of slum life. It looks like a builders’ shack, from the outside, but it’s cloaked in tasselled orange glory, within. Every waking moment, piped music fills the air and all our senses, at such a volume as would shatter the window-panes, except we haven’t got any, here in Mankhurd. Bhavika-didi cranks her personal volume up 'til her throat’s on fire, and presses on with tenses.

“Yesterday I was sad,” thumb jerk to the left, crying face. "Today I am happy!” Forefingers down to the ground, big smiles. “Do you follow, yes or no?”

“Didi, and tomorrow?” says Swapnil, clearly aware of the transitory nature of happiness, a child after my own heart.

“Tomorrow, no, Swapnil!” Didi barks, “Tomorrow comes after. We’re thinking about today!”

Rani-didi – Woman of Many Parts, Distributor of Worksheets and Custodian of the Erasers – closes the door, and pulls the skimpy curtains across the metal bars of the window – they don’t reach, at either side. We can either hear, or breathe, but not both, it seems. When the electricity cuts out, the room plunges into murkiness, and the fan slithers to a halt. The heat washes in instantly, and Rani-didi cracks the door open again. Ganesh’s glee chorus has stopped – power-cuts aren’t all bad news – and silence fills the courtyard, for an interval. We work in the gloom for a bit, peering at smudgy pencil on rough paper, then the light comes on – fiat lux! – and the fan whirrs into action. Before we have time to blink and refocus, the air’s throbbing with joyful music, again.

Think of Songs of Praise. Now think of everything that isn’t Songs of Praise - mewling women, pulsing drums, and a thousand decibels – and you have Hymns to Ganesh. I don’t know how Indian music is annotated; they’re very hot on syncopation, yet seem to sing everything glissando, if that’s not a musical paradox. Whatever the theory, it’s all very catchy. I hum along happily, in the car, for miles (well, hours), playing “Name That Tune” with Monu. Joss Stone and Jack Johnson, and everyone else who lives in our CD drawer, in Rempstone, are going to have to spice things up a little, when we get home.

Bhavika-didi writes “YWBAT” on the board, corralled tidily off to one side. I watch her do this maybe twenty times, before I associate it with what she’s saying as she writes – “You Will Be Able To...” Even in a classroom with no chairs, no desks, no glass in the windows, we still have to have Aims and Objectives. Today, YWBAT understand co-operation. That’s a tall order, for most undergraduates I know, but here’s a floorful of seven-year-olds desperate to tackle it, in a foreign language. Co-operation is working together, didi says.

“What is co-operation?”

“Working together!”

Yesterday, we did responsibility, which most of us understand better than we can pronounce. It’s not just about spelling and sums, in Akanksha, you know.

Bhavika-didi’s telling the story of Aju, a big fish with scary teeth, who bites a hole in the fisherman’s net, to save all the little fishes caught inside, proving that even people, who don’t seem kind, can be caring. I’m supposed to be testing Ashish on his sight words, mother, father, cupboard, same, different.... but clearly Aju’s adventures are far more exciting – for Ashish and me both – so I ask the Boss if we can go and sit on the terrace, to read. She smiles at me, the way you smile at people of impaired understanding, and says no. Apparently the modus operandi for local housewives is to dispose of anything unwanted straight out of the window. Dirty water, paper scraps, yesterday’s leftover dal, vegetable peelings, and worse. And even worse. So, sitting on the terrace outside, for a spot of paired reading, in peace, is not an option.

Back at the apartment, and the clouds are gathering with intent, so the newsagent-barometer did well to stack his Hindustani Times. I can hear the rain, but I can’t see it, looking straight out of the window at the leaden sky. The end of the street, where you turn left for the Great Punjab, or right for D-Mart, is thinly visible, but this is more folk-memory, than sight. Beyond that, it could be the nearside of Powai Lake, it could be a cloud-bank. The other side of the Lake might as well be Kathmandu, for all I can tell.

Down below, the green-grocer’s stall is cloaked in blue plastic, but there are no takers, this afternoon. The stall-holder sits, cross-legged, with his empty balance and weights, behind his pyramids of custard-apples and papaya, waiting for the rain to exhaust itself, and his customers to come out again. I hope he’s got a crossword, then, because the heavens are rocking and rolling. It’ll be a while before anyone’s in the market for snake gourds.

Sticky Moments

Today we don’t have to stop to ask twenty-seven assorted tuk-tuk drivers and newspaper-sellers for directions, so we get to school on time, just before nine o’clock. Monu’s been once, and like a boy, has logged the co-ordinates of Mankhurd Akanksha School, into his Mumbai Knowledge. I still have to be virtually in the shadow of our building, Verona, before I know where we are. To be fair, it casts quite a long shadow. I have patch pockets of The Knowledge, little snatches of awareness – like where my favourite street barber has his pavement stall, opposite the flyover, or where the closed-until-the-sun-comes-back lighting shop is, on the road out of Powai, or where the scrawny calves live, in the alleyway between the no-lakh hutment and the chai-seller, at the junction – I just don’t know how they all fit together, into anything coherent. It’s a kaleidoscopic world, mine. Unsurprisingly, I miss my own house, sometimes, sailing past the end of our drive, and we’ve lived there since 1996.
“Good morning, didi!” the early-birds chorus, even before I have kicked off my crocs at the door. Bhavika has them spaced to the last quarter-inch, on the mats, where she wants them. If they fidget, she invites them to entertain the whole class with a dance. I’m very aware of changing position every two minutes, myself – marble’s very unforgiving – so I resolve to practise my lotus on the floor, at home. I seem unable to sit cross-legged, without one knee being higher than the other, yet, when I do a surreptitious scout-round, no-one else’s padma’s asymmetrical. Reluctant joints creaking, I put it on my To Do list, and make a conscious effort to be still, in case didi asks me to dance...
Akash arrives. He slithers out of his chappals at the door, and curls round the jamb, balancing on one foot, until Bhavika notices him. “Didi, may I come in?” I’m felled by such charm - in the hurly-burly of school corridors, back home, it’s every man for himself – but no-one else in Room 112 bats an eyelid. Two minutes later, he goes out again, to liberate a spider with academic aspirations. He returns it carefully to the wild, then hovers on the threshold again, waiting for permission to come back in.
By way of starter, a prayer:

O god, give us strength.
O god, give us peace.
Make us good.
Make us strong.
Make us good and strong.

Eyes open. “Good morning, didis!”
Bhavika writes “Values” on the board, underneath the date, and we revise being happy, for a bit. Kajal wins the laurels with “It makes me happy, when I read a book!” – laudable, if visibly propagandist, given the context. You can’t have happiness without sharing, so the next logical step is paying a compliment. Didi – bold as brass – asks for compliments. “Eating a banana,” volunteers Anand. “No!” says didi firmly, “we are done with being happy!” A bit drastic, for seven year olds, I reckon, but she’s only thinking of our Values lesson, not Life In General. “Now give didi a compliment!”
“Didi’s dress is clean!” says Rajul. To her credit, didi manages not to look crestfallen, evidently believing in taking compliments gratefully, as and where she finds them. Anyway, battling through drifts of slurry, to get to school, with her frock unscathed, deserves special mention. “Who can give Caroline-didi a compliment?” She chooses Khaja, with the cheeky eyes. “Caroline-didi’s hair,“ - I hold my breath – “is very nice.” I smile at Khaja, and feel like my birthday and Diwali have come all at once.
In my group this morning, I have Swapnil, who’s cute enough for me to overlook the small matter of a runny nose (seriously cute, then...), solemn Mehul, who takes some winning over, Ashish, who likes to work on his knee, where I can’t see it, rather than flat in front of him, on the floor, where I can, and Sultana, who strokes my earrings and needs to sharpen her pencil – already as pointy as a syringe – several times, before settling down to write. Once she starts rubbing things out, they’re all clamouring for the eraser, so I have to confiscate it, gloating with power. This is what teaching’s about, being in charge of the rubber.
We make sentences, using “a,” “an,” “am,” “and,” and “after.” Ashish tries the scatter-gun, two-birds-one-stone approach, and says, “I am an elephant.” I’m not convinced he’s completely GOT this.
When we do the Days of the Week, all my hard-won classroom skills are really put to the test. Bhavika has a sheet for everyone, with the days scrambled out of order, so it’s time – deep joy – for a bit of Cutting and Sticking. What’s more, we can’t drop bits on the floor, because we’re already on the floor. With only one pair of scissors for every three or four children, progress is slow – particularly with Swapnil’s key-hole surgery approach to cutting-out. However, Bhavika-didi doesn’t know that Caroline-didi can slice up worksheets, sitting in the dark, at the bottom of a swimming-pool, with one hand tied behind her back. AND I have a secret weapon. Don’t tell anyone: I wipe a stripe of glue down the middle of the page before we start, which saves anyone from sticking Sunday to their own knee, by accident. It also means that I have to be a bit nifty, intervening, if anyone slaps down Tuesday in front of Monday, for example, but on the plus side, I am the only one with sticky fingers, at the end. I don’t wish to blow our own trumpet, here, or anything, but MY GROUP FINISHES FIRST!!! Yes, alright, alright, I know it’s not a race, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be the winners, does it?
By way of plenary – you guessed – a prayer. These children have waded here, through unspeakable flotsam and jetsam, yet they still have the innocent grace, to give thanks for the world being so sweet. The breath sticks in my throat, for a moment, then Khaja cheers me up, with a high-five, on his way out. “Bye, didi!”

The New Didi - Akanksha

In Lalubhai Compound, the road’s awash. Little boys wade out from the kerb, up to their shins, in the swirling floodwater, to play. They float paper boats, and waft a tatty carrier-bag to and fro, under the surface, to catch as much as they can, then they lift it clear, and shriek as it spouts and collapses over them. The monsoon’s not all bad news, it seems. They’re giddy with the novelty of their new game – the rains only started four days ago, no-one’s jaded yet, at least, no-one under ten - so I stifle curmudegeonly thoughts about pollution, and let boys be boys.
This isn’t the best-heeled end of Mumbai – in fact, it’s often not shod at all. Every turn takes us further and further off the tarmacked track: as each res we pass becomes progressively less des, the potholes in the road increase, until they’re in a majority, and the way forward is more broken cinders than made road. A goat kneels on all fours, to eat scraps from a stainless steel bowl. A white hen, and her half-grown chicks, fastidiously pick their way across the rubbish-silted path, trying to keep their feet dry. We’re in Mankhurd.
The tenements run into each other seamlessly, and the building I’m looking for has no name, only a number. The painted numerals aren’t Arabic, forcing me into the backseat, navigationally, as well as physically. We find it the way we find everything, by getting into the zone, and asking, and asking, and asking, until we narrow down the options to our ultimate goal. (I say we. I mean Monu. I loll about looking gormless, as always. I point out to Monu, that if I didn’t have him, I’d still be at the airport, bleating, “Can you tell me the way to Powai, please?” in ever shriller tones. He laughs, but it’s no joke.)
I’m after Room 112, on the first floor. Akanksha, the slum school. And here it is.
“Akanksha” - Sanskrit for “wish” - is a non-profit-making organisation, founded in 1990, by a young student with a vision. The scheme aims to improve the lives of less privileged children, through education, helping to make their dreams come true. These children don’t dream of Disneyland Florida or a new iPod, they dream of having a flat with running water, or a job in a decent hotel. It makes you think.
The original recipe was simple: enthusiastic, dedicated volunteers, unused rooms in forgotten corners of buildings, and youngsters, wanting the chance of a new future. Simple, but not easy - the establishment always resists change. Akanksha only needed one person with the imagination to take a risk. They started with one class of fifteen pupils. The programme now reaches three thousand children of all ages, in nearly seventy schools and centres across Mumbai and neighbouring Pune. A young girl explains what Akanksha means to her: “If I will not be educated, people will not treat me well, and then my life will be a waste. I’ll get married to an alcoholic, and have babies, that’s my life without education.”
It’s difficult to say how big Room 112 is, here in Mankhurd, because there’s no furniture, apart from a tall cupboard in the far corner, and a plastic stool to one side of the blackboard. The floor’s covered with small people sitting, cross-legged, on straw mats, all wearing red t-shirts which say, “Be The Change.” I walk in, then walk straight out again, to leave my shoes nudging cosily up to their little flip-flops, outside the door.
At the front, Bhavika’s in control. Eighteen pairs of brown eyes follow her every move. We’re in the middle of doing What Makes Us Happy, as far as I can tell. There’s a big smiley face on the board, surrounded by suggestions from the floor. Apparently, what makes us happy, so far, is eating: there’s mango, and chocolate, and ice-cream – children wouldn’t be children, otherwise - but Bhavika wants us to think beyond our stomachs, now. When Rakesh says “It makes me happy, when I eat banana,” she agrees, but it doesn’t make the blackboard. Khajit – with some coaching – finally produces, “It makes me happy, when I play computer game.” The whole room erupts with admiration. I clap too.
“You will notice we have a new didi, today,” says Bhavika. (I assume “didi” is “teacher” but I find out later that it means “big sister” which I instantly prefer to “Miss.”) I stand up, and tell them about myself. They think it’s very funny, that my baby boy is taller than me. It has to be said, he thinks it’s very funny, too. One by one, they stand up to return the compliment, the shy and the not-so-shy. You can spot mischief a mile off, even when all he says, is his name.
We do reading from flashcards, and sentence-building. We have to use “am” in a sentence, which is trickier than you'd think, because it's Hindi for "mango." Once over that hurdle, we get a bit stuck in the “I am a girl/I am a boy” groove, until someone says “I am a teacher,” which turns out to be witty as well as grammatical. “I am a doctor” brings the house down altogether.
We do personal descriptions, which takes less time than in a primary class back home. There’s not a single blonde hair or blue eye in the room (present company excepted), and, as they’re all below waist height, no-one fairly qualifies as “tall”. Even the girl/boy divide’s a matter of fact, not discretion. And then, I get sent to the back of the class. Not for being naughty. For Group Work.
Let me introduce you to my group. There’s Sultana, with looped plaits tied up with ribbons. She likes copying. Anand, with no front teeth for the time being. He’s very shy, but, it turns out, he’s a good speller. Kajal’s the tallest person in the class. She has dangly earrings and, a perfectionist, is over-fond of the eraser. She’s still drawing her fringe, for the twenty-seventh time, when everyone else is colouring in their t-shirt. And Khaja, who tells me he’s seven, but who’s very small. His self-portrait includes hopeful muscles on his arms, bulging Popeye kneecaps, and a rather fine frill of toes on each foot. Then he pencils in roller skates, for good measure. Open-topped ones, obviously. He demonstrates how they might work, until Bhavika tells him to sit down, from across the room. I would quite like to take Khaja home with me. I see that all four of them draw themselves with beaming smiles, and I’m glad.
Like diligent scholars, all round the world and back again, these children are longing to hear those three little words – “Right, pack away!” There’s a flurry of activity, then each child sits down again, in an enviably plasticine-limbed lotus, eyes closed, fingers and thumbs joined into little circles, palms turned up. We have a stretch and a think, and straighten our spines. Then we say,
“Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, God, for everything.”
Bhavika-didi makes us do it again, because we were shouting, not praying. Everybody thanks everybody else, and the mat-monitors stash away the mats for tomorrow. Then they all scamper off, for a flip-flop free-for-all, on the landing. I tell Miss, that I used to sing the same poem, at school, when I was five, and she says, “Next time, you show us, we will sing.” So, that’s a plan, then.