A few good Fellows

                           A typical Saturday for me starts a little after  10 AM , when the slumbersome celebration begins,  marking the arrival of the weekend.  I would quite easily convince myself that this break was well deserved and hard earned. (Despite circumstantial evidence suggesting the contrary.) This Saturday though, I volunteered to wake up early and try to be of some use to people doing important work in our country. The Fellows of Teach for India(TFI) Chennai,  were hosting a  Cultural /Sports day for the Primary School kids they taught and had invited volunteers to come and help manage the 800 kids  they were expecting from schools all over the city .  Chennai Students Kondattam or CSK was what they were calling the event and that's where I was headed.

                             It wasn't what I could have called a fortuitous start to the day.  And  that I owed to my dainty  scooter. The event was to happen at Thiruvanmiyur's Corporation school and I was trying to find the place.  I had come quite a long way on  the  ECR, trying without luck to locate the left I had to take.   I stopped to check for directions on Maps. But by  the time Google had finished re-routing me,  the scooter had had enough. The stubborn machine just refused to be spurred by my repeated jabbing of the auto-start button.(Historical data had proven that for the life of me,  I cannot get the kick start pedal to work) I had little choice but to abandon it  for now.  So I pushed/parked it at a nearby shop and went on foot to the school which was thank fully only a short distance away from where I was.

                            The school had a sizeable play ground where some kids were already playing  a casual game of throw ball.  They stopped once in a while to take in the steady buzz of activity at the entrance.  Lots of enthusiastic volunteers were crowding around a make shift steel help desk at which two slightly hassled looking TFI representatives were sitting with their lap tops.  These two, a boy and a girl in their early twenties like most other Fellows of TFI, were politely welcoming everyone and taking down their names and phone numbers.

                             'Have you been mapped with anyone?',  the girl asked me when it was my turn.   By 'mapped',  she explained that she wanted  to know if I had already been assigned  this or that responsibility or made in charge of any group of kids. I told her I hadn't been and that I was told to simply show up and help out where I could. She smiled and took down my details on what I learned later was a Google spread   sheet,  one that was simultaneously being edited by the guy sitting next to her.

                             After my attendance was formally marked, I joined the  small group that was gathering nearby . Volunteer tags  were passed around.  I took mine  and  sat at the small stairway nearby.  It was like being back in college. There was a group of girls sharing a joke, laughing loudly and commenting on each other's clothes ,  a couple of surly looking guys just standing around ,  a pretty girl in nerd glasses and a boy who kept following her around,  another young couple helping each other with their tags. I sat uselessly  there  for a while, part of me wondering if anyone would notice if I quietly slipped away. A combined feeling of guilt from not doing anything to  the society I lived in and an awe inspired  curiosity to see what Teach for India was all about  had brought me there that day .I convinced myself  to stick it out. 

                 I've noticed that a lot of people I know ,  my age or otherwise, are really good  with children or in the very least are quite fond of them. They get along easily with them  and the  kids in turn enjoy their company.  I'm quite the opposite of that.  I'm really awkward around them and I mostly don't know what to say. And kids don't enjoy that.  Even the little ones who can't talk, like only the adults who do talk, a lot.  That's a little handicap I was hoping would not stand in the way of the spirit of volunteering, which  I did have. And shortly afterwards, it was time for awaken that spirit . A small sense of foreboding took over when the volunteers were asked to supervise and escort the kids from the guest schools, who were fast arriving in bus loads. 

                           I started off  cautiously.  I had to accompany small groups of kids on a short walk  to the venue.  I tried to strike up conversations with the kids who would be walking nearest to me. Most of them would only shyly answer when I asked them basic things like  what their name was and what class they were in.  But some of them  would  happily tell me which class, which section, which teacher, which school and which part of the city they were from without me having to ask even a third of these questions. One of them took the trouble to run to where his teacher was standing and point her out to me.   Then there was another who gave me a curious frown and demanded that i declare my name. When I told her, the frown gave way to  a grin and she gave me her name as well. Then there was another kid who told me that he had come to the event last year  and it  was  'super'.  He said he was  mainly hoping that there  would be  chapati and sambar like last time for lunch. He assured me it would be quite delicious.

                         After all the children had arrived, the activities commenced. The organizers had put together a motley of competitions ranging from the educational and sporty to the dancing and singing.Every kid would have found something to do. The Fellows made sure the kids got a lot of encouragement.  'Coloring,  Akshaya'.  Its your thing! You will rock ! ',  I heard one of the them telling a little girl who nodded and  followed her tall teacher as he lead her to the right room. This was happening all around. Groups of kids stuck to their patron volunteer who took them to the where each of them wanted to go. Until I caught all that live action that day , I could never have guessed how hard it is to manage a group of young kids full of energy , perpetually ready to run about and get them to sit at one place for even a short period of time.

                           The kids were spoken to only in English.  This was so that they could pick up the language of globalization too .   These were children from an unprivileged background; most of them didn't have any footwear. I saw many of them running  around   with bare feet on the burning  hot play ground and felt guilty for wanting to shield my eyes from the sun. There was very evidently a vast difference of class between the Fellows of TFI and the children they taught. The kids however,  seemed well accustomed to their smartly dressed, polished English speaking , laptop wielding mentors. I couldn't really put my finger on how this was so. Perhaps it was that strict-affectionate attitude unique to teachers that all the TFI Fellows had. Perhaps it was also the simple thrill the kids got from having a bossy teacher whom they could try to be naughty around . Either way it was quite plain that these kids had found their role models.

                   I spent a lot of time helping out at the 'logistics room'  where all the prizes were kept .  Math puzzle books and   English grammar books constituted most of the prizes.  These had to be sorted out for each competition. About a thousand writing pads had to be unwrapped from their covers and labels had to be stuck on them, to be given as gifts to all the participating children. Prize winners' certificates had to be prepared. The best part about working there was getting to watch the Fellows behind the scenes so to speak.  One of them , Prerna was my boss for the day. I never her saw stay at one spot for more than five minutes at a time. She was always bustling about , taking care of at least five things at once. Everyone was always asking her where this or that was, what to do about this or that problem. One of which was 'Does anyone have a spare pair of shorts? One of my kids just did Number 2 in his'. It turned out that such an eventuality was in fact anticipated and spare clothes were indeed available. The event coordinators started steadily  streaming in and out of the room , handing over the list of winners in Spelling Bee, Drawing , 100 Meters Boys, Girls Relay etc. I wrote out the names on the certificates in my less than ordinary hand writing , as no one else seemed willing to take up that job.

             The most truant of kids were also  sent to this room so they could be under the control of many adults.There were always atleast four teachers in the room at a time , but each was busy doing their own thing and the kids were pretty much left to themselves but for Prerna's occasional admonishing. She told three little boys to sit quietly in the middle of the room where she could see them . They did . For about 10 seconds. Then one of them went "Miss bore adikidhu miss". "You first tell me properly in English" , said Prerna. The kid thought for a while and said "Miss its boring miss". "Then you shouldn't have been so naughty no? Sit quietly for sometime then I'll let you go out. " came the stern-ish reply. The kids fell silent for another 10 seconds. After that they started examining all the certificates that lay about and reading out the names of the kids they knew and exclaiming in happy surprise when one of their own names came up. It turned out that one of them was a spelling bee star. Everyone in the room  then started taking turns giving him difficult words to spell. This little one from First standard could spell Avengers, Transformers, Tom and Jerry  and Siddharth (his teacher's name). The Fellows were thoroughly  enjoying the company of these kids and I realized that apart from wanting to make a difference in their society and wanting to shun high paying corporate jobs, this was their motivation and driving force. That they are able to make a small difference in the lives of  some absolutely adorable children and have a wonderful time while at it. 

                       Soon the time came for all the children to get back to their buses and leave. And so that entertaining day came to an end.   I found my way back to my unreliable scooter . A good roasting in the sun had humbled it enough to come alive at the gentlest push of the start button. I had  certainly learned many things that day , not the least  of which was, there are still some good fellows left  to give hope to  this country.