Visiting Koshish was a both beautiful and difficult experience. Koshish (which in Hindi means ‘effort’) is a school for children living in a slum in Sarita Vihar, Delhi.
After my decision to join the Himalayan Adventure Summer Program for the summer of 2009, I pondered over what could be a meaningful experience for the students.
My biggest criterion was for each one of our students to have a one-on-one interaction with the people of the country. Most importantly, that section of society which often remains hidden or tucked away in the corners or backyards of big cities like Delhi. For us to get closer to life in the Third World, so that it does not seem like a distant phenomenon or something that happens to people far removed from us.
So I decided to go to Koshish. I was told it was a school for children from low-income families. The parents of these young boys and girls were domestic workers, sweepers or street side vendors.
It was my first time visiting Koshish as well, so I did not have set picture in my mind. I guess I was expecting it to be a school with many rooms and each room dedicated to a grade, because what I saw made me very sad at first.
The school was on a street that was not tarred. There was a canal running next to the street which was clogged with trash, dirt and empty packets.
It also turned out that the school building had only four rooms that housed at least two hundred children. The rooms were not well lit and all the children sat on the floor huddled together. Each row, not rooms made up a grade.
Although the teachers could read and write English, they were shy to speak it, and the children greeted us with curious eyes and small smiles.
And not to forget, it was one of the hottest days in the city, and the temperature had soared to 106.
But what unfolded was an interesting social phenomenon; music, the Macarena dance and games like cricket and “khoko”, a popular Indian game, became our languages of communication. In the beginning we assisted the teachers with the study plan of the day but letting the children become our teachers of “khoko” and cricket helped break the ice.
The children livened up in their new role as teachers, as did we in teaching them a step or two of Macarena. Very soon the school compound was filled with a cacophony of noises, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
The heat, the lack of space, the inability to communicate verbally and the social distance in terms of class, nationality and skin color ceased to matter.
I still remember the big smiles, the bright eyes and the small hands waving at us when it was time for us to leave. A young girl ran up to me and asked us to come back the following year.
Reflecting on my visit to Koshish, there were two lessons buried in that experience for me.
First, as a sociologist, I realized that the will to interact can dislodge social boundaries between groups we have created over the years.
Second of all, I was humbled by the enthusiasm and the affection of the young children as they welcomed us in their social spaces.
As I end this piece, I am reminded of a line from the movie, “Angela’s Ashes,” “You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind, your mind is a palace.”