What will you have choose? - Chance or choice? The "chance' of an auto-wallah to pick up and drop you at the school or the choice of walking 3 kms (one way) to attend the school? Without a second thought,I would opt for an easy way (literally).
Aishwarya is one of the enthusiastic,cheerful,high potential student of my class (Grade 4th). Apparently, Aishwarya's father drops her to the school but she has to walk 3 kms ( 1.86 miles) from school to her home.
By all means, 3 kms is a lot for a ten year old to walk. I was concerned about it and decided to walk her home with her. The idea was to get into her shoes and understand what makes her walk 3 kms everyday and help her out.The answers that unfolded baffled me.
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| Ambitious Aishwarya |
Courtesy: Nithya Ramachandran (My impressive co-teacher)
It isn't that Aishwarya's parents couldn't afford to hire an auto-wallah. The auto-wallah they last hired had the reputation to ditch at 11th hour and if Aishwarya couldn't make alternate arrangements,this implied she couldn't attend the school on that particular day. Bang! She was tired of waiting for someone else to decide if she can attend school or not. The easier thing was to stay back home and enjoy the day-off. But she took the choice to attend school everyday, even if it means to walk 3 kms. Hell. Sometimes 6 kms.
A greater part of the world that I come from, argue that I shouldn't have given up my cozy,lucrative career to work for Teach For India (TFI). Among others, students like Aishwarya inspire and reinforce my decision to be here at Teach for India and take up what I am passionate about.
They call me a teacher but thank you Aishwarya for teaching me what it really means to have 'a genuine hunger to learn'.
Pretty soon, I hope to figure out an amiable solution and find out an reliable auto-wallah ji to drop/pick-up Aishwarya to the school. Will greatly appreciate if you can offer any assistance, in cash or kind : - )
Kindly check out Nithya's Giveindia page
You may also reach out to me at rahul.bhosekar@gmail.com
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Rahul we need to talk....
ReplyDelete@ Ullu..about what? mail me your contact number at rahul.bhosekar@gmail.com. Will call you over the weekend
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