In love!

The younger kids - Bridge group and the school going ones, are going to zoo day after tomorrow. I thought it'll be great if I make a ppt for them explaining about some of the exotic and endangered animals. And while making this, I can almost see their eyes shine with curiousity, can almost hear their deeply innocent questions, can almost feel their nerve impulses jumping at the flood of information like a starving white tiger ;), and can almost be sure that I'm in love with them. Quite hopelessly too :P

And I should remember these...

I have this bad habit of forgetting the compliments but remembering the taunts. I figure, I should remember these as they did brighten me up :

1. Abhilasha telling me "It's very difficult to know you and not love you". Whatever that female did is not that important, this was something that really touched my heart.
2. Mandeep at the admin after hearing my big plans for life "I think you're going to have an interesting life. Do keep in touch". And yes, we are still in touch!
3. Rahul Roy Chowdhury "I think it's your work, your work with the kids - that you've your innocence intact!".
I think I'm really lucky to have met him, though I keep telling him to get insurance and make me the nominee, figuring with his rate he won't live long ;)
4. Deepak Boro, a 16 yr old kid at Ummeed, a hard nut to crack : "I wish I had a teacher like you when I was young, I would have already become something" and then gives a big smile. Some days later he decides he doesn't want to give the computer paper, so skips my class , indefinitely..
5. Dinesh, the crazy photographer from Jaipur  : "You're a devil, but when somebody looks at you from a distance talking, laughing, fighting, you're very amusing. There are very few people like you"
6. Frida, a 9 yr. old girl, from the family I was living with in Goa : "Now, who is going to tell us bed-time stories?"
7. Suraj, another kid from Ummeed, a good dancer, singer, but a lot of aggression : "You must be a real kid lover?? that can only be the reason.. why someone like you should come to a place like this "

Confessions.

While I sit here with the empty 1 litre Cookie Crumb ice-cream bucket, I can't help but reminisce. It's been a while since I've felt like questioning myself. The reason being it's so much easier defending things, when you don't even mention your slightest doubts, even to yourself. 

Three days back, someone stole Martin's iPod. Got it back yesterday. Was stolen by a juvenile kid, with whom I used to talk about controlling anger, and forgetting the past, and focussing on future. He came to me to tell that he found the thing backside of Ummeed under a brick. But the truth as told much earlier by the staff was that, he was trying to find the lead in the Mehrauli market when two other kids saw him. And so, he probably returned it thinking that everyone's going to find out about this after all.

He was sick that day, and I haven't been talking to him much as he was not improving with his behaviour. But that day being a "Cheese toast and dining manners" class, I felt he could use some Cheese magic. I should've known better.

This is not the first time, I had serious doubts about myself. In my starting days at Ummeed, there was a kid Naushad Ali. Always dirty, always hitting, always outside the class. I decided to talk to him and after a lot of counselling, we both came up with a point system where things like clean hair, clean nails, clean ears etc. fetched +10 points and hitting a child, bunking class, lying, disrespecting fetched -10 points and so on. I promised if by the end of the week, he gets more than 100, I'll give him a gift. The very next day, I saw him sparkling clean and so well behaved, I felt incredible. He got more than 100 in just 3 days. I gave him a card for getting there so fast, and a chocolate at the end of the week. But the very day there was some holiday due to Moharram I think, and he ran away from home. And hasn't returned since. I tried finding out from the staff, they didn't have a clue. They say he had some mental issue. But I really wish I get to see him some day. He gave me a roller-coaster ride; got me so high and then left me to free-fall.

I was having an argument with this friend about him not even trying to quit drugs (his health is deteriorating and yes, I really had to!) and he flipped out telling me about how selfish I am at the core, how I don't even know what I'm doing, how illogical it is of me to force my perspective on him or even on the kids and how people try to fix others, when they can't fix themselves or their family. He apologized the next day, and said he didn't mean all that. And that, it was all just backlash, but it's the truth in it that turns in my stomach when I'm having a bad day.

A word about Chand..

Have you felt that you can see something great rolling inside someone else's brain, even when you hardly know that person? I think I feel like that quite often working with kids.

Chand

It was the very first day in Ummeed and he ensured that I'll remember his name thereafter. The kids weren't in mood for a class (which they rarely are, to be honest). I asked them to sit in a circle and in turns, dance a step plus tell me what they wanted to become. The fact that 90% of them wanted to become fighters wasn't a surprise. The real surprise was this kid Chand who was almost reasoning like an adult whether it was the futility of me trying to have a class or the senselessness of making him dance. All of the kids in Ummeed are pretty much free spirited, but Chand is still somewhat different. He keeps moving in and out of class as and when he finds things that interest him. Razor-sharp brains. Not only understands things (that appeal to him) but applies it - the sign of true learning. I always find him fiddling with things or walking in his own world. Alone with an English paper he can't understand, with other kids in mud making bridges, climbing down trees and best- running away from teachers. This republic day, I discussed the saga of our freedom struggle and partition. History being as dear to him as science, or probably more, he was glued that class. Today, after I read them the daily news - the revolution in Egypt, A. Raja. arrest, two pilots die trying to save lives etc., he comes to me and says - "I think the time of Bhagat Singh is going to be back again". I asked him why he thought this way. He said "With all this bad news daily, with all this bloodshed - I think the time of pre-independence struggle, the time of Bhagat Singh will be back again". I've always been impressed with him, but today I'm sure he hit the bulls-eye!!! I hope the system never succeeds in killing his reflective mind.. 

P.S. : I adore all of them. I really would wish the system never succeeds in killing their free spirits either, but I do hope for more order in Ummeed. Sometimes, the heart really questions the point of education if the morals are perforated. Somebody stole Martin's (a fellow German volunteer) iPod yesterday. I wish there was no exams/admission bullshit, I would teach them the real important things in life first; rather than sandwiching it in their classes.