The rainbows of Khushi :)

I started going to Khushi in late June 2011; i was supposed to be teaching the girls there a little bit of computers. I can say for sure now that im the one who has learnt much more, from them. And they didn’t have to teach me a single thing.

Initially, we had the rush of the summer vacation homework, so i couldn’t really start the computer classes – instead i got a first-hand experience of how tough the homework is for some of the elder students. Writing page loads about medieval forts (about which there’s maybe one paragraph in the textbook), places of heritage they HAD to visit, random freedom fighters – all that any other kid would copy off the internet. That’s unfair, but that’s that.

Reshma and Yasmin, 'posing' for me :P

The elder girls that i interacted with are very responsible and hardworking and at the same time very concerned about the younger ones. So after we finished as much as we could, they had a trip to Kashmir which they were mighty excited about.

Initially, my ‘students’ (although i loved being a bhaiyya to them) were pretty much hooked to Paint, but weren’t we too, at their age? Only after the first few days, after they had the assurance that every class they attended would not be their last, were they ready to move on to newer things like MS Word. But many of them are pretty fast at grasping new things, and in a few days I was having trouble keeping them engaged as many of them had got a hold over most of the things I had told them, and were getting bored.

I learnt a lot outside the classroom as well, where i got to spend time with the non-classroom girls also, as punishment (from their side; i enjoyed this the most!) for them not being allowed to learn computers. I’ll list a few incidents which shook me, and made me realise how much lesser i actually understood the girls than i thought i did, and how much each girl was different from another.

Once, i was reading out a few stories to the little ones, when 2 girls came running into the room. One of them tripped over a bag and toppled it,

Imrana , Mohini and Mehrun :)

spilling the lentils which were in it (supplies probably). Then after a little scolding (not by me; the news spread like, well, news, and reached mummy promptly) we got on to picking the fallen seeds. I was helping them, when a girl, all of maybe 7 i think, came to me and said “Hum kar lenge bhaiya, aap mat karo. Aap bade ghar ke ho na” (“We will do it bhaiyya, you need not help us; you’re from a good family”).

Another time i was chatting in a room when 2 girls came to all of us, little photos of flowers in their hands asking everyone which one they liked more. The girls i was speaking to chose their photo of liking and i did likewise. As soon as the 2 girls had left, one of the ones remaining remarked “Kya bhaiyya, uss ladki ka dil dukha diya. Bol nahi sakte the ki dono ache lage aapko?” (“Couldn’t you have told them you liked both; now see what you’ve done – you upset one of them”) and i, without a single word to utter as a reply, was made to realise what an imbecile i had been.

They say the sweetest and most poignant things in such simple words, that i usually don’t have fitting words to even continue the conversation, but they’re quick to judge my silence – they usually change the topic themselves.

I got a few cards as farewell gifts. In addition to the customary ‘Roses are red, sky is balu, oh my dear bhaiyya, i miss you’, in one of them i read this line – ‘ I like you because you like us’ – which i think can be extended to most of our relationships also.

I’d got a short haircut for the summer, so there were a lot of ‘takle bhaiyya’ (bald bhaiyya) jokes. Although i used to find it endearing, on one of my last day, one girl casually said,

Saroj has her fun while Reshma (not in pic)

tries to remove the lice she saw in my head,

it's a really painful procedure :)

“Bhaiyya aapko bahut bura lagta hoga na jab hum aapko takla-takla bolte hein…aapke chehre se dikhta hai” (“You must be feeling very hurt when we call you names…i can see it in your expression.”)

The view from the outside maybe wrongly construed, of a place where little girls reside, with all the basic necessities with the able guidance of a dedicated team of staff and volunteers. All first timers will be overwhelmed by the ecstatic response they get. Only if you ‘stand and stare’ for a while do you begin to realise how complex the world of each girl can get – how each girl is temperamentally different (which is often shaped by their environment at home both now and before), how dynamic the relationships between the girls, and between the girls and the staff are, how her feelings towards home and school can subtly change – and you would find yourself in a pretty challenging environment.

Discipline issues always exist and the staff (consisting of 4 house mothers ably supported by the coordinator, health worker and other support staff) does a wonderful job of handling them both sternly as well as sensitively. One mention of mummy and all the chaos preceding it stops instantly.

All things said, the girls are much more mature than most of us (certainly including me) were at that age, owing to their exposure, and perhaps even as mature as a few of us are now. And they give you so much importance in their lives so soon, and so much more love than what we give to most of the people we know (we would think a hundred times before telling someone that we love them, and they showered love throughout their cards!) as we are socially trained to be that way perhaps. My day used to be lit up when i went and met the girls, irrespective of how it had transpired till then; people at home had never seen me smile so consistently, when i returned. It’s certainly a thing to learn from them; how cheerful they make each day of theirs, and how by just being themselves, they manage to make people around them happier too.

Asmina helps me tally the students' marks!