Sunshine

It was always raining . Out of the thirty days we were in Arunachal, the sun was out for five. One such rare occasion was when we were at Sunpura. We finished the dawn prayers and to our surprise, classes were given off since the Sun was out.

It seems that the children knew the sunny day drill well. Within minutes , the whole campus turned into a washing machine. Every available hand was washing clothes, linen, curtains and what not. After a few hours the school looked like a carnival decorated with flapping colorful garments.

Later I saw a flock of small girls near the temple ,picking something from the grass. There was a huge silk cotton tree behind the temple. It’s pods had burst that day, showering the cotton all around . The girls were picking this cotton. The cotton was discarded. The seeds, carefully removed ,shelled delicately with teeth and nails and eaten.

Too much effort for a snack smaller than half a peanut. I am sure when they learnt it from their grandmothers , it was all fun and game and a tasty snack. What it actually did was it increased their attention span, taught them patience and drilled deep inside them that food is hard work. This is the magic of tribal education.

Girls joined school at class three. These smaller girls were more in touch with nature. As they progressed to higher classes , education eroded the local knowledge they had received in the hills from their parents and elders. The oldest girls in the school were in class eight. This class was thoroughly confused. They had lost enough of their tribe’s knowledge to be looked down upon by the village elders. School gave them education that was more or less useless in their world. Their only hope was for development to reach them.  With development , these educated youths hoped to be a bridge between the two worlds.