Chip-In: Make a Difference - Part 1
A newly drawn Rangoli welcomes you through a semicircular gate onto a typical rural-look one storied building. As you take a few steps inside and to your left, you see a small window, behind which a group of tiny little children are trying to desperately wave out to you shouting, "Good Morning Sir!" You wave back, and that gesture of your inspires them to shout out the same in an even louder tone!
As you walk towards the window to greet them, a teacher suddenly steps out of the neighbouring class. "Namaste", she says - probably the only Hindi word she knows. She tells us that the teacher of the class where, we were headed, is in the kitchen making breakfast for us. How nice!!
We step into the class and are literally surrounded by the children in no time. My friend takes out his camera and asks them to pose for a picture, but obviously they don't understand a word of what we said, so he simply clicks on. Looking at the flash, the children get more excited and start to make more noise. Suddenly the teacher who greeted us earlier walks in, shouts at them in Kannada and asks them to sit in one place. One poor guy gets a slap on his bum from the teacher and quietly walks away and sits down facing the wall in the 'punishment' mode. All this happens in a matter of seconds and as we decide to leave, we look at the boy near the wall, who quickly glances back at you and gives you a lovely smile as if to say - Don't worry....I am simply happy to see you here!
This was the scene that greeted us last Saturday at the Government Higher Primary School at Chathrakodihalli in Kolar district about 50 kms from Bengaluru. We were present there as a part of the Synopsys charity drive which was being conducted in partnership with 'Future India'.
As 20 - 30 volunteers from Synopsys and later on from Samsung started to arrive in the school, we saw some instructions being shouted out after which some students came out of a class in a neat line formation and entered another room. Later on we discovered that those classes were being emptied to accommodate us. Two boys from a senior division came in with some plastic chairs on their heads and we decided to help them in arranging the same. A few seconds later the same two boys walked in again with a cloth and took up the task of cleaning those chairs.
A little while later, we were served some delicious breakfast that was freshly made right there as a few of us mingled around with the children who were getting super excited to see us.
I remembered a sentence from an email that the organizers had sent us a few days earlier - 'It's not often that these children get visitors from the city!'.......and that was becoming more and more apparent as we clicked a few more pictures and watched the teachers' and children play out their regular drill.
Some time later, Siva, the event organizer from Synopsys handed us a sheet which told us that we were in charge of distributing books to three little schools in the district nearby - Shettykodinaadu, Chikalahalli and Laxmipura. 6 of us loaded the required number of books in two cars and headed off for what turned out to be a very memorable day for all of us.....
As 20 - 30 volunteers from Synopsys and later on from Samsung started to arrive in the school, we saw some instructions being shouted out after which some students came out of a class in a neat line formation and entered another room. Later on we discovered that those classes were being emptied to accommodate us. Two boys from a senior division came in with some plastic chairs on their heads and we decided to help them in arranging the same. A few seconds later the same two boys walked in again with a cloth and took up the task of cleaning those chairs.
A little while later, we were served some delicious breakfast that was freshly made right there as a few of us mingled around with the children who were getting super excited to see us.
I remembered a sentence from an email that the organizers had sent us a few days earlier - 'It's not often that these children get visitors from the city!'.......and that was becoming more and more apparent as we clicked a few more pictures and watched the teachers' and children play out their regular drill.
Some time later, Siva, the event organizer from Synopsys handed us a sheet which told us that we were in charge of distributing books to three little schools in the district nearby - Shettykodinaadu, Chikalahalli and Laxmipura. 6 of us loaded the required number of books in two cars and headed off for what turned out to be a very memorable day for all of us.....
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