Age no bar: These grannies are going to school to shrug off illiterate tag

Shikshanala vayache bandhan naste learning has no age limit sounds platitudinous The clicheacute however gets a reallife sparkle when put on a blackboard facing 28 nonliterate grandmothers who have enrolled themselves at the Aajibainchi Shala in Phangane village of Thane districtEmbracing a routine that is conventionally reserved for tiny tots mdash nursery rhymes alphabets math tables and the occasional class in painting mdash senior women aged 60 to 90 years are coping with daily homework and an upcoming unit test This will be their first exam in a formal teaching space since they started going to school in MarchAll aged 60 to 90 years students of Aajibainchi Shala in Phangane one of the remotest of 206 villages in Murbad taluka of Thane district walk 1 km to get to school where they spend two hours every day learning from kindles and charts PicsSatej ShindeAn otherwise nondescript nonmotorable Phangane 95 km from Mumbai on the KalyanAhmednagar highway now has a claim to fame Until recently it was a village of 400 people where the redcoloured ST State Transport bus and the governmentrsquos BDO Block Development Officer did not venture On March 8 International Womenrsquo Day things changedThe classes are sponsored by the Motiram Dalal Charitable Trust which has provided a blackboard slates which the ajis call lsquoTV bookrsquo a book shelf and colourful pencils Twentyeight women from the village are currently enrolledFamilies here live on subsistence farming and sundry employment in the Ambernath industrial vicinity doing small jobs in packaging Most can barely make ends meet Each house grows shevga drumsticks and has them for breakfast lunch dinner mdash guests are gifted shevga as there is little elseThe students are all aged between 60 and 90 Many of them donrsquot have birth records When they fail to recall their exact age they claim 65 as a suitable answer PicsSatej ShindeThe village now however has a unique classroom which could boast of the countryrsquos oldest pupils wearing a uniform of pink nauwari saris The Motiram Dalal Charitable Trust and Yogendra Bangar a teacher from Phangane Zilla Parishadrsquos primary school created history of sorts when they set up a blackboard kindles a book shelf and colourful pencils at a farmerrsquos house The house belongs to Dattatray DeshmukhThe classes are conducted at local farmer Dattatray Deshmukhrsquos home He has has loaned two living rooms for the cause One acts as the classroom the other is where study material mdash charts stationery mdash and food supplies are keptHis decision stems from both goodwill and the fact that the matriarch of his family is a part of the class The house has two huge living rooms with a 1000 sq feet area that now encompasses the school One room is for the women to study another where educational aids charts stationery food supplies are kept Bangar and the trust asked men to join in the classes too But they found that women especially senior women needed this support more Most of Phanganersquos male residents know how to sign their names The trust thought it best to bring the women up to speed Sixty became a minimum requirement as the classes needed a cutoff ageTeacher Sheetal Morersquos motherinlaw is also a student Initially the 25yearold was uncomfortable teaching a class more than twice her ageChildren set the tone by drawing the lsquoWelcome Aajirsquo rangoli in the open ground outside the school Select households joined hands to contribute vegetable soup and groundnut ladoos as a booster snack for the brave women who had chosen to be schooled at an unconventional age In order to liven up the aajis Marathi for grandmother the village also organised an excursion to Ralegan Siddhi to meet social activist Anna Hazare a week before the start of the school This was perhaps the first time that the aajis travelled beyond Tokawade an adjoining village barely 10 km away from Phangane Haunsabai Chindhu Kedar said ldquoWhen we met Anna Hazare and the another leader Popatrao Pawar the idea of going to school took firmer shape The big world of great people which we had only heard of came closer to usrdquoYogesh BangarThe day at Aajibainchi Shala begins at 2 pm mdash the two hours between 2 and 4 pm are all that the aajis can devote to class as they have chores at home Class begins with the Sharada Vandana prayer to the Goddess of knowledge delivered by 87yearoldRamabai Ganpat Khandagle Khandagle canrsquot hear properly but she has a strong voice and so itrsquos she who is the trusted prayer monitor After the 10minute assembly class beginsAlphabet practice on the blackboard and then onto the slates via what the aajis call TV books forms the core of the session For the next three months the only school teacher 25yearold matriculate Sheetal More whose motherinlaw is also a student will follow a timetable that matches the target mdash getting them writing and signing their namesMore was initially embarrassed to teach the aajis all of whom are over twice her age ldquoThe first day was tough But I realised that they were childlike in the class I could shout at them and they would not mindrdquo she smilesldquoWhen we face the Almighty and tell him about our main achievement our prime gain will be our signature we donrsquot want to die angthachaap unschooledrdquo says Anusuya Savlaram Deshmukh 86 She comes to class along with her sisterinlaw She says her grandchildren laughed at the idea of her going to school but she has stuck to her resolve of becoming literateThe race against age is obvious but motivating the ladies requires singleminded devotion Parvatibai Maruti Kedar 65 did not miss school even on the day of her sonrsquos prenuptial haldiFor Kamal Keshav Tupange 68 itrsquos about regaining a lost sense of identity Married at 12 Tupange came to Phangane at an impressionable age With this school it is her chance to reclaim her space Her grandchildren are married and she wants her own time now she says Which is why she has substituted baithak a sitdown session with a spiritual guru with school timeThe exclusive student profile of Aajibainchi Shala calls for precedence of verbal communication as against rigorous writing exercises Most of the 28 aajis are frail some have weak eyesight and others are hard of hearing Many have to be escorted on the 50 metres to 1 km distance from their homes to school as they cannot carry their bagsAlthough the class is designed for aajis between 60 and 90 the ones in their late 80s far outweigh the others Many donrsquot have birth records but family documents and photo albums indicate their advancing years When they fail to recall their exact age during formal introductions they claim 65 as a suitable answerAajibainchi Shala traipses over agerelated physical handicaps by factoring in the wisdom and vocabulary that come with age As most aajis have boisterous voices and a good command over the poetry of Maharashtrarsquos saints it is decided to map these entry points into formal learning Focusing on the ovis poetic metre of Varkari saints which women traditionally sing while doing household chores aajis are urged to narrate Tukaramgatha or Chokhamela poems The school is trying to see oral knowledge through a classroom prism credit for which is due to Bangar who hails from Murbad His lsquoAdult and Continuing Educationrsquo ideas spring from his selfdeclared literacy missionldquoTheir recap of saint poetry makes them overqualified for a preprimary setup We have to merely prep them for reading and writing for which we only need to enthuse themrdquo he saysAajibainchi Shala has made news because of its implausible geographical location Phangane is among the remotest of the 206 villages falling in Murbad taluka Dichotomous growth characterises the region making it a picture of plenty and scarcity at once A luscious green countryside Malshej Ghat and hill resorts for the urban sightseer is no solace to Murbadrsquos subsistence farmer growing rice and uradIllequipped primary health centres cannot be masked by the treelined bungalow schemes advertised as second homes Enlightening is the joke that villagers share about Murbadrsquos furnished villas with enticing names like Rose Meadows Palm VillageReal estate dealers get their clients for demo visits during the monsoons mdash the best time to shroud water woesWomen in Murbad also some from Aajibainchi Shala cart water on their heads from the rivers Tap water is a luxury and load shedding a reality grocery and newspapers donrsquot come in every morning Amid this lack of connectivity Aajibainchi Shala offers a beacon of hopeIt is an industrious use of the twilight years mdash easily replicable because there is no dearth of unschooled aajis across Murbadrsquos 127 gram panchayatsSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext