Going Away Feet

The last two days have been stressful. This is the month of Ramzan and the children are being called to attend a daily 'Qayda' or religious instruction class that clashes with our class timings. All our star students either arrive very late for class, panting, or miss class completely. The kite-mad boys who have to be dragged to school make little attempt to attend, because their more serious friends are not coming. And Laxmi and I wait anxiously in the afternoon hours, fanning ourselves in days that have turned humid and hot once again, waiting with maps and the precious football, to explain night and day on planet earth, where Faizabad is, and the intricacies of the solar system.

We have encountered the complications of sustaining any attempt at educating first-generation learners.

Farida, short of thirteen, has decided she is in love with a boy called Chhotu and has no use for a class where teachers tell girls to first become strong and financially independent before they get married. Rahela and her sisters and brother are notable absentees. Our most loyal follower, Razia, most noticed for her big front teeth, is absent too - she is running a fever. We joke with the children, hand out work, pat heads for good effort, but all the time our eyes return to the gate. Is anyone else going to show up? I secretly feel a pang for Pratibha Miss. She is the Anganwadi helper who used to go to the children's homes to shepherd them for half an hour of Hindi and English alphabets before they began attending our undoubtedly more glamorous class. Now I know how she must have felt!

Our children are going away from us all the time, all over the place, and there's precious little we can do to stop it.

Then I notice that someone has left their footwear behind. Typically, it is a slipper each of two different pairs, exactly what a rag-picker manages to assemble from daily foragings. For no explicable reason, the sight brings me comfort. They will be back. Of course. And I had better learn to manage the extremes of a heart that fills with liquid love every time I see mis-matched slippers.