@Our First Slum Visit on 3rd June – 200666
In the last week meeting we decided to go to Saidapet Slum (Suggested by Hema) @3. Believe man there was vinoth waiting in the stopping @ 2.30 itself. Wah wah what a sincerity. That time only we were starting from home… lolz..Anyway we started the meeting at 3.07 Sharp..
We walked straight to the slum. I initially caught a slight fever.. How will it be..we were with a old bag, all bada bada guys(not all 
and with a book.. I don’t know.. I made all attempts to appear casual..
It actually didn’t expect a slum to be like that. There were buildings quite big. There were people who were watching TV’s. I guess I am too spoiled seeing so many movies. We marched towards the street. When the dead end of the street came we need to answer them anyway. Ha my movies power didn’t disappoint me.. as expected there was a tea shop and some people around it. “who are u.. what do u want?” – They asked us.. Then we explained we want a basic data of education profile of the children.
We were actually lucky – the girl/lady with whom we talked was the tuition teacher for the children before 2 years. We got the information that all children there go to school and also go to tuition (Balvadi). We also enquired about the profile of the slum – they pointed us to another slum where the condition is little poorer than them. Two kids were asked to guide us. We followed them. They walked like Army men having president(s) behind them. We tried to ask them their name. They were keen on moving forward.
Then they were interrupted by one guy. He pointed us and asked in his ears “who are they” – we anyway overheard it and waited for what could be his reply. He said “this people have come to take some tuition. So just taking them to kids over there”. God!! We didn’t tell him anything.We didn’t even tell we are here to teach them something. how did he have the assimilation power of observing what we are upto and putting that in the terms of what he understands..
The new kid joined us. Now that we were lead by three children.. we were the sight caught by other children playing around. At one spot we had around 20 children clubbed together and doing different activities – majority were girl children.. honey for us.. we stopped moving further and just told we are gonna play now.. I said ” I wanna play now.. who will add me with u” – guys didn’t bother me at all… girl kids were kind enough to give a warm smile and accepted us… then we started with a song.. a very attractive song about “chicken” – no no not that chicken.. it is a cute song of a chicken singing a song.. the kids sang along with us.. then we played some games.. hema was good in the games too.. me hema and kids played while thiagu,gopal vinoth were enquiring the adult people who came to see what we were doing.. it happened simultaneously.. there was one kid called ” Jothi” she was jumping then and there. Since those kids were not the one we were targeting actually we moved on.. but to the surprise the kids told “Don’t go” – Held by love we played again with them… they taught us another game… this time thiagu gopal also joined us but poor guys they lost the game so soon… then after two begs with the children for the permission to leave we got independent atlast.. but it was touching when “Jothi” bid us bye weeping.. how much time did she know us? 1 hour? But how was it possible for her to bond so soon… Human relations are really amazing… Wondering about this we moved on to the next slum…
There the entire scenario of our visit changed…
Time to go now.. will continue tomorrow.. until that keep guessing what happened.
Cheers,
Divya.S
I am taking the torch of Remembrace with me to search my convolutions to give u the previous week report. Guys please rewind your analyzing power one week back since this is last week report. Kill me for my procrastination. This report was supposed to be completed Tuesday itself.
Ok.. Now to go.. Ill continue from the last report.When we went to the other slum the entire visit took a different meaning.
The new Slum is called as “Thideer Nagar”. Meaning “Sudden” place. My tamil movies didn’t fails to give a correct portray of a Slum (Expecially “AARU”).. It was a pakka slum… After bidding bye to the kids we played we entered another slum. It was a slum with full of huts which extended for about three streets long with quite random pattern of huts. We entered the first slot. There was a house-wife. We started asking the education profile. She told that kids study in schools and study only till 8th standard. We kept asking that house wife if she makes her kids study. Then she called her younger sister who is going to 10th class. She told tat her life ambition is to become a teacher. When we asked how will she manage the finance she was not having answer. Then we gave her many options and said u study u will get scholarship. We realized she is happy when we saw the bloom in her face.
Then we had another curious kids hearing all this. “now what do u want to become sir” – we asked him. He was happy that we posed him the question. He said I want to become big. Someone commented if u eat nicely u can become big. Then he said I want to build big big buildings..”oh you want to build for yourself or for others (in the context as a civil engineer)?” we asked him. He said I will build big big buildings for all my friends and we will stay together… We all smiled at each other and his sense of friendship touched each of us.
Then we moved on to other streets. The education profile seem to be similar. The children study till 8th class. Then when we were crossing “that” only “that” happened. The former “that” is a place where people were pumping the water. It was like a place where the entire drainage water was sinking. There were stones put in between so that people can cross from one end to another end. It made us little worried. We also need to implement hygiene in that place. The latter “that” is that while we were crossing that mini-koovam (courtesy: Chennai Local Language ) there was shanti pumping water. She literally shouted at us. “What are you upto?” – We told that we want to help the children here with education. Then she stopped pumping. “Are you here for taking tuitions??” she asked with curiosity. We told “you need to tell that – we will try to help maximum on it “ – Then she smiled on us. We didn’t find any traces of anger which she had initially. Then she told “we are very much in need of tuition” and kids around were nodding their head. One naughty kid asked “how much are you going to ask us for tuition” – We ensured we are not for money. Peace rested on their eyes.
Now we had more and more kids around us. Some were just nagging us and smiling. Then we moved on. Shanti completed her work and took us to somewhat mid of the slum. There were many people. We had a little long discussion. Their requirements and the past tuition history. There was a tuition master before it seems. After he left there is no one to help the kids.
When we were asking about the place where we can keep the tuition one kid told we are ready to sit even in the “that” place and study. Showed he was too interested for tuition. Then we kept moving. Met some people. Collected some information about people in the village who are educated there. But we were not able to meet anyone. Finally we met two house-wives who were really interested in bringing up the general knowledge and education of the children. Their name is Amul and Devi. (We have big plans for them. More on next week report ) .. Then we decided the head of the Slum ( called as “OOR THALAIVAR”) But he was not available. We returned from the Slum with the promise that we will come the following week.
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