Seema Madam, FD Jamalpur, Ahmedabad

June 2015, 12:01 PM: 

I walk into a school, people pass me with stares. That day, the phrase “fear of the unknown” became an experience. I saw people. All of them with black robes/Hijab or white khaki kurtas, long beard. I saw children. Very cute but a frown in their faces waiting for parents to pick them up. I kept walking until I reached a room where I could see a lady sitting with an air of authority. She was speaking to parents. I also saw a man with a kind face. When I greeted him, he reluctantly greeted me back and asked me to wait for Principal Ma’am. Later I get to know that he is the Principal and the lady I was waiting for is the Headmistress. 

Fast forward to 15 minutes later, I am in the staff room. A teacher introduces me to the other teachers whose names I knew I would take a long time to remember. That’s when I remember seeing Seema Ma’am. She comes in, greeting As-salamu alaykum to fellow teachers. She glances at me for a second and sticks to a smile for the rest of the day. 

Days went by. I thought I was here to teach. What more could have bothered me? Well I was wrong. Things started becoming bad for me. I was called up to the staff room to be scolded at, teachers would come to my class unannounced and ask me why I do not follow Islamic practices the way they do (they knew I am born to Muslim parents), they would hit my kids whenever they wanted and with full authority. I was terrified of speaking up, thinking that it would spoil whatever relationship I was trying to build. My timid nature got even more timid after witnessing culture differences. 

Out of all the teachers though, who were hostile to me, the most terrifying was Seema Ma’am. I was told that she is a senior teacher at school. The kind of vibe I got whenever I would be in the radius of her visibility was unbearable. I felt like hiding in a corner when she was around. 

She did not talk to me. Ever. A conservative smile, maybe yes, sometimes. Apart from that, it was pretty much her barging into my class and hitting my kids for reason I still do not know (I have left it at that!) or it was about her looking at me like I don’t belong there. Our relationship was mostly about her being hostile and I being timid. I also felt that she was against any teacher being even a little friendly to me. 

But then, I did not give up. I thought to myself, “Maybe you are not doing enough.” 

I started noticing her. I complimented her on (seemingly) little things… A dress, a earring. I would tell her what I am going through even when I knew she is barely interested to know. I would share my worries, my happy moments in class. 

Slowly, changes started happening. She started accepting me. She began to share lunch with me. She probably started seeing me as a part of the school’s ecosystem. Maybe she started to find me familiar. While there were many things turning around, the most significant evidence of change was her asking my co-fellow, Viraj to click a picture of us together during an educational trip with the kids.

What happened next will be a memory for a long time to come. She put her arms around me and held me very close to her, as if I was a dear one. I felt belonged. She told Viraj that the picture should come out very well… As if I meant something to her. I am glad I have the picture to share with you. I am glad Viraj (my cofellow) froze this moment for me. A moment that brought me so much joy.

January 2016, 4:15 PM:

Seema Ma’am sees me at the seminar hall teaching kids. She comes in with permission, asks my kids if they are enjoying class. Kids shout, “Yes Ma’am!” And she says, “Why not? You have the best Didi in the world!” And she looks at me with proud eyes. 

I am blessed to have faced these challenges. I would never have celebrated the relationship that we now share otherwise. I would never have noticed every kind gesture that comes my way, every day. 

“Because without the bitter, sweet isn’t as sweet.”- Brian, Vanilla Sky

Story submitted by Neida, 2015 fellow, Ahmedabad.

FalakNaaz, Grade 3, FD Jamalpur, Ahmedabad

“A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but its persistence.” 

An entire world of such a river which embodies not just persistence, but power as well is FalakNaaz. When I entered my classroom in the narrow lane of Jamalpur seven months ago, there was this girl sitting in the remote corner of the class. Gazing me through her curious eyes, she said, a tad bit shyly, but rather wryly, “Aapki ye activities kab khatam hongi? Mujhe padhna hai.”

I was furious. Here I was working day in and day out to make her a better reader, but she simply thought I was some jester and she was ‘due’ to get an ‘actual’ teacher. I quickly reached my bag, grabbed an Enid Blyton and put it in front of her. I asked her to read it. She was struggling, my God she was struggling. Other than few high frequency words and few letters she found, all I could hear was a myriad confusion in form of a sound. I asked her to stop reading and said, “Aapko padhna hai, to padho ab.” It was her turn to be furious. I could see the turmoil in her eyes. I gauged my first mistake. 

English was not a measure of intelligence, but a language that I chose to teach these bunch of kids to make a world outside Jamalpur accessible to them. In this process, I forgot to tell them ‘Why’ are they learning these sounds and what significance does blending of these sounds has in forming words. The very next day I could see a Frankenstein’s monster in the making. Her hand shot up for guessing the sound of the day as soon as I wrote it on the green board, she was the first one to form new words using the word-families. She made consistent efforts to break sounds, blend them and experiment with different onsets etcetera. Without me insisting, she approached me, the fire still in her eyes, “What is this? C – r – e – a – t u r e (as in toore)”. I said, “C – r – e – a – t u r e (as in chur)”. I kind of gave her that one for she was able to get the “C – r – e – a” right. 

I was now curious to know where did she come across such a word, for the leveled stories which I gave them seldom had words of such complexities. She pulled out a copy of ‘Moral Stories’ from her bag which she had from her second grade and showed me the word. She had finished reading three quarters of a page that was hardly with any illustrations. I was impressed, I didn’t show. “You can do much better”, I said. Weeks after weeks went by and her ocean of sounds, blends and diagraphs was ever expanding. She kept on asking for books, soaked them in her mind and returned them. Until a day came (just recently), when she said, “Bhaiya, that book?”. I was perplexed about which book had I promised. She pointed towards my bag. That much cue was enough. I removed that Enid Blyton children’s classic and handed it to her. 

There were drum rolls in my ear and it was my moment to rejoice. She started reading the book in front of the class and read it with such intonation, phrasing and gestures, that I was in lack of words to say the best. She might not have got all the words right, but, to be able to read more than 90% of what she read, accurately, was the biggest deal for me. This is the story of my FalakNaaz. Even today she says, “Aapki ye activities kab khatam hongi? Mujhe (pointing at big fat book) padhna hai”.

Story submittted by Viraj, 2015 Fellow, Ahmedabad.