Kushma Khurd (Gorakhpur), Uttar Pradesh
Sakshi Nishad took a moment to recall her age. “I am seventeen,” she said, after a minute. Despite her age and tall stature, Sakshi, who was neatly dressed in her school uniform of chequered red and white shirt and brown skirt, is only in class five.
But, that is because Sakshi started late. She had long enrolled into the school but rarely attended it, so her name was taken off. It was only four years ago that she re-enrolled and started regularly coming to the school and has never missed the classes since then.
Ever since Pradeep Kashyap joined the school as a teacher, Sakshi makes sure she reaches the school, which has a huge open ground with trees all around, before the clock strikes nine.
“I am never late and have been regular to school since Pradeep Sir became our class teacher four years ago,” she told Gaon Connection. Her favourite subject is mathematics, she said. “Pradeep Sir makes it so interesting, we never get bored,” she said.
Pradeep Kashyap, a software engineer, was always drawn to the idea of improving children’s lives and when the opportunity arose, he joined the government primary school in Kushma Khurd village — 250 kilometres from the state capital Lucknow — in Pali Block, Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh, in 2018.
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“During the training by DIET [District Institute of Education & Training], I underwent before I joined full time, everything seemed fine, but once I was appointed, and this was my first posting, I saw the immense challenges that lay before me,” Kashyap told Gaon Connection.
Not the least of it was rampant alcoholism in Kushma Khurd, which had a deep impact on the lives and education of the children. The village has a population of 1,142.
“Out of 101 enrolled students, only 40 attended class. All the students sat in a single classroom and the learning was minimal,” Kashyap said. Almost 90 per cent of the men in the village are alcohol addicts and it was common to see the children come to school with no proper clothing nor stationery and the hygiene was poor, he said.
The village inhabitants mostly belong to the economically and socially marginalised communities like the mallahs (traditional boatmen), and most men are employed as daily wage labourers. Their income is uncertain and whatever they earn usually goes into buying alcohol.
Sakshi’s father is an alcoholic too. “He doesn’t let me study. He keeps asking me to do some chore or the other and hits both me and my mother,” Sakshi said. Her classmates Mamta Nishad and Ritnesh Nishad, also faced the same problem at home.
“My father hits me and my mother but I don’t speak up because of fear of being hit again,” 15-year-old Mamta said in a low voice.
Teacher to rescue
Kashyap realised early that he had an elephantine problem to deal with.
“Within a year, I built my house 200 metres away from school to better monitor the kids and ensure that they were not absent,” 34-year-old Kashyap explained.
Kashyap started riding through the village gullies on his bike to rally any loitering children. Yashoda Nishad, a fifth grader, recalled how she had decided to skip school as her uniform was not washed and clean.
“Sir came home looking for me. I tried to hide, but he stood there till I emerged and then took me to school,” she said.
“There is a talaiya (pond) in the village, where the boys gather to play goli (marbles). Sir catches them all and gets them to school,” she giggled.
Kashyap is convinced that education is the way forward for these kids to escape abuse and alcoholism. “The problem will be solved only when the children are educated, they get a job and take charge of their families,” he said.
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“Earlier, the kids roamed around wild playing goli or gulli–danda. But now, Pradeep sir comes home and takes them off to school with him. He makes the children bathe at the handpump near school, in case they are not clean enough, and only then allows them in,” Chanda Devi, mother of Yuvraj and Akshay who study in Class 3 and Class 1, respectively, told Gaon Connection.
He has created such a buzz in the village with his approach that parents of children studying in private schools now want them to move into the Kushma Khurd government school.
“At present only five children in the village attend a private school,” Kashyap said. All the other children go to the government primary school. The enrollment in the school has jumped to 245.
Involving the village women
To address alcoholism in the village, Kashyap constantly counsels the women in the village.
“We interact with the mothers of the students during the monthly parents-teachers meetings. I emphasise how the only way out of their misery is getting their children educated,” Kashyap said.
But, he said he knew it was an uphill battle as the women were fighting to survive each day. And, alcoholism is something that cannot be turned off overnight, he pointed out.
Shivani was one of Kashyap’s students till class five after which she moved to another school. Her father is an alcoholic too, but somehow she managed to stick on and is doing well in her new school.
“She has become a monitor,” Shobha Devi, her mother, said with pride.
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“She keeps saying that ‘Pradeep Sir’ taught her so well that she is ahead of most students in the class there,” the mother added.
Meanwhile, the children under Kashyap’s mentorship are daring to dream big. Indravati, who is 12 years old and studies at the same school, wants to become an officer in the Indian Navy. Indravati’s mother, Sangeeta Devi, is a cook at the school, a job that she got also thanks to Kashyap Sir, she said
“My husband drank a lot and he died of liver failure. Kashyap Sir offered me the job as a cook for the midday meals so that I could make ends meet,” Sangeeta Devi told Gaon Connection. Her hopes for a better future are now pinned on her daughter.