Day out with the Nischay girls

A very happy birthday Malala, you have inspired many. This one’s for you 🙂

Nischay, a school for underprivileged girls was started as a community outreach program by Neerja Modi School   on 15th Oct, 2004 to provide free education to girls below the poverty line. It aims to provide these girls with quality education along with life supporting and vocational skills so as to empower them with dignity of life. 

I could hear the tintinnabulation of the last school bell as I made my way out from the building. The day was the fifth of November, when I had my first class with the girls. When I first told my mother about teaching them, she giggled, making an effort to control her mirth; teaching is not my thing, she said. I was determined to prove her wrong.

That day I made my way to Nischay, alone, with a bag on my shoulders and a book in my hand. One step closer to Nischay I could feel my stomach curl with anxiety. I was walking unusually slowly, almost robotically, as if my brain was struggling to tell each foot to take the next step. It was as if I were in a stupor; like someone under hypnosis. Another step further, I entered the smallest building of my school. There were blackboards on the wall and the girls were sitting on the black floor repeating after the teacher.

Grade ninth, the class I was teaching was sitting in the extreme corner of the room. Warmth spread across my body when I first saw them and I became more excited to teach them about her. I had decided to not teach them the plain old math, science or English but tell them about a person, a woman, who had inspired many and hopefully would inspire them too.

Under a tree, we all crossed our legs and sat on the green grass. The book that had been tightly held against my stomach was finally revealed to the eager girls who had been eyeing it for a while now. The spark in their eyes was visible as I showed them the book. The book was about a Pustan girl from Pakistan’s Swat valley whose story of bravery had crossed not only the Indian border but spread worldwide. The tale of a brave girl, in an unsafe country. She stood for girl education and was then shot by the Taliban. “How many of you know who Malala Yousafzai is?” was my first question to them and frankly, I wasn’t expecting an answer. But I got one; they said she was the one who was shot by aatankvadi; hmm, smart girls. In turn, I rewarded them with silent claps, which meant frantically moving their hands up in the air, giggles escaped their mouth.

The only rule in the class was to speak and forget the hitch. I then proceeded in telling them the length and the breadth of Malala; the oh’s and ah’s, the ups and downs- the whole caboodle of her life. I told them about her beautiful mountain home where she no longer lived; I told them about her new safe home and how she still wanted to live in her motherland. I narrated to them the incident of bullets entering her body and how she had long imagined her father being shot first and then her. I told them how she loved her family and how her ammi was like any Indian mother, praying for her child to be safe. I told them that an atankvadi is called a terrorist in English and about the terrorist organization, the Taliban. I told them about her dreams, aspirations and achievements and then asked ,“Do you see any change?”.

After speaking for a prolonged period, I wanted them speaking but what I got was silence. To tell the truth, I was disappointed. I really wanted them to pour their brains out with possible musing they had in their mind.  After a lot of encouragement and telling them they had beautiful voices which was followed by more giggling, one girl spoke. “There is no change” she began, “if there is a change, why are rapes still happening?” The prudent part of me wanted them to talk about girl education. I knew they were going in the wrong direction but I did nothing to stop them as they were finally speaking without a hitch.

The teacher deep within me just woke up and let me tell you we had a great interactive session. As the day was coming to an end the girls started opening up. We not only talked about sensitive topics but also gossiped like every girl does. For me, the highlight of the day was when one of the girls asked me if she could get this book in Hindi so that she could know more about Malala. As a teacher, I knew they enjoyed the class when one of them said that she wanted to learn about Serena Williams in the next day out.

After that very successful class, like any other NMS student, I went to the canteen to treat myself with an ice cream whilst looking back at the pleasant day out with the Nischay girls.