The school at Bindal is at a stage where we feel it is relatively settled in that we have space and desks and chairs and teachers. We have an exercise routine following a prayer routine. Then there is the routine of unexpected hurdles, delays, conflicts, confusion, which is as consistent as the school itself.

So in the past few weeks, we first had to deal with the Jhanda Mela. This is an annual affair around the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib celebrates the time when Guru Ram Rai arrived in the Doon Valley. The Fair lasts for anything between 15-20 days and sees the area around Jhanda market and Khurbura transforming into a riot of noises, sounds, people and colours. Street vendors come in with their wares and shops too stock their supplies for over a lakh people who visit the mela from all parts of the state and also from surrounding states. Now our kids, who happen to have easy access to the Mela for being in the vicinity of their slum decided that this is the place investing time and energy in. So at Jhanda Mela, our kids have full attendance, something that we would love for them to achieve at our school!

Then there was the Navratra days, which ironically saw an almost daily Bhandara-and-Prashad routine happening through the nine days of fasting. So our kids would run off to one or the other of those. This is also the time when a lot of the children accompany their parents to visit their native villages in Bihar or UP or elsewhere.

We must, of course mention here the occasional bumps and hurdles in the form of PWD digging a wide gaping pit across the path through which our kids come to school. So yesterday, for example, we walk into the school to find half of the kids hanging from the mesh that encloses our school!

so our daily school forecast invariably reads “sunny, with a hint of problem”!