http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100925/MAGAZINE/709249980/1041/error?template=globalbriefingThe ten-year-old teacher of untouchables
Rajni George
Last Updated: September 25. 2010 12:55PM UAE / September 25. 2010 8:55AM GMT
Bharti Kumari comes home from school every day and passes on what she
learns to other 'untouchable' children in her village. Charla Jones
for The National
As an orphan and an 'untouchable', young Bharti Kumari seems the
unlikeliest of schoolmistresses. But as Rajni George discovers, the
stoic Indian village girl with an old soul has grasped new
opportunities and is a charming role model for self improvement.
On any evening in the village of Kusumbhara, Bihar, the air fills with
the steady rhythm of the alphabet being recited by children at a
small, unregistered school. A slight, solemn-looking girl sits under a
large peepal tree with a group of Dalit children ranging in age from
four to 10. For an hour or so, she tutors this group of
"untouchables", belonging to India's lowest social caste.
Ten-year-old Bharti Kumari is a student and a Dalit herself, and is
only copying what she sees in her own classes. She is passing on what
she learns at the private school she attends – one that her neighbours
cannot afford.
Every morning, she walks to her school in the village of Akhodi Gola,
more than 3km away, and returns home in the afternoon for lunch,
convening her makeshift school at around 5pm.
Bharti is an unusual case altogether; orphaned as an infant, she was
found at the railway station and adopted by a poor farmhand, Rampati
Bhuiya, who already had three daughters. Brought up as the family's
own, she was enrolled in one of the district's 2,002 sarkari
(government) schools, as most other children of her background are.
Last year a loose wire set the family house on fire, a tragedy that
killed her adoptive mother. It was this death that secured her greater
educational opportunities. She came to the attention of a local
journalist, who decided she should attend a better school. She was
introduced to the principal of the Gandhi Public School (GPS) in
February, and she was taken on as a special case.
Reserved and wary, with a sweet face and pensive eyes, the young
student teacher is difficult to read and is reluctant to look directly
at us. When we meet her at school, we do not realise at first that she
has a fever (someone tells us she has had head lice for nine months
and that this has provoked the fever), which partly explains her
reticence. Bharti stands out among the other schoolchildren in more
than one way: in addition to her brown hair and fair skin, her stoic
demeanour is that of someone who has seen a lot. She is an old soul.
The school is housed in a two-storey concrete building off Akhodi
Gola's dusty main street with its few shops selling tea, fried snacks
and staple foods. GPS has 10 teachers and 700 students, and Bharti is
one of the few Dalit students enrolled here. Her fees of 50 rupees
(Dh4) a month are paid for by the school's director, Meena Gupta, who
says she has adopted her, in a different sense, for "buniyadi shiksha"
(basic education).
She studies Hindi, English, maths and science here, Gupta tells us:
"All subjects". Most students, we are told, "study after marriage and
complete their 10th"; minors sometimes get married and then study.
We watch as Bharti leads the class in reciting the alphabet with a
younger-looking schoolmate who just about reaches her shoulders: "A –
A, B – B," the class and its two leaders go back and forth, Bharti
timidly. The pupils are in the third grade, but some of them are also
10 years old like her. Having fallen behind, they are still learning
the basics. The two student teachers look on as the 40 children in
their class chant, sitting cross-legged in the outdoor space.
One of Bharti's teachers at the GPS, a smiling young woman, speaks of
her fondly but acknowledges that she is a middling student, no more
proficient at her studies than her peers. She is still struggling,
like some of the other children, with the alphabet. While she may have
been depicted in various press reports about her as a precocious
student, it is clear that she is just another child who is trying her
best to catch up with her syllabus after years of substandard
education. Like any young child who has had limited access to proper
education, her fundamentals are still shaky.
What is different about Bharti, however, is her initiative; this is
what has charmed the public and made her the focus of several news
reports and blogs.
At her home, a basic, bare-boned, mud-and-brick house with a thatched
roof similar to the others in her family's village, Bharti is more
relaxed but continues to be bemused by questions about her school.
Still wearing her uniform, she eats her roti in the small room that is
a bedroom, dining room and living room all in one. Speaking through
her family afterwards, she nods in response to questions about
academia. "I enjoy classes. I like school."
The young student teacher has many would-be caregivers: her father;
her older sisters, who have families of their own; the extended family
that her neighbours make up; her teachers; and the directors of her
school. With the increasing coverage of her story, it seems there will
be more who want to lay claim to her, in different ways.
Bharti is tiring of interviews and seems confounded by the attention
that stories such as hers entail. Ill as she is, a foreign radio team
has been dogging her footsteps over the past week or so, although its
reporters say they have taken her to the doctor and got her the
antibiotics she needs.
As soon as she recovers, she will resume her role as student teacher.
There is hope in the little school under the peepal tree, in part
because of the desire for self-improvement among its students and
their 10-year-old teacher.
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