The entire government seemed to be suffering from collective laryngitis and a bold initiative was required to get a small town with Kharwar, Musahar and Chero tribes out of their habitual dolor. An abject failure of policies, leadership and projects had dehydrated this tribal land.
The children wanted to be naxalites, with 400 operative naxalites amidst them, whose needs were dictated on the people around the villages. Water was a luxury and the inhabitants existed on onions and rice for life. They wept. They waited. They survived. I sat outside the hut and could not comprehend why thousands of crores of taxpayers money would not reach here. The reason was they were unaware of their rights, unaware of democratic strength and unaware of the power of prayer. The small village with many more around it seriously grieved. It was wounded. It wanted a rescue. It was waiting for a master to save it…
I immediately decided to act and do something amidst the busy traveling that I was scheduled to do for months. I wrote to Guruji asking Him for His guidance and within minutes there was a reply as short and strong as possible. He replied “Start a school there.”. is words were final for me, I knew there will be a new lease of life.
With spirited encouragement and blessings of the master, I decided to take up a dilapidated school in the premises and reopen it with a new name and committed vivacity – Sri Sri Vidya Mandir. A place where education will be worshiped and where worship will be part of an education system.
Integrating an education system amongst the tribal’s is a challenging and humungous task, as no one is educated, neither are they logged on to the world through the internet or the idiot box to compare, to know the laser effect of schooling. The school was quietly started with a Guru Pooja and blessings of Guruji with no funds at hand, neither any students committed to learn.
The impetus that the children had was mid day meals as many suffered from malnutrition. The delicious baked rice with some jaggery and pulses were never eaten by the children at school, however hungry and deserted their stomachs were, they took it home to share it with their parents and juniors, so that they also could breathe, for one more day. Live for today. There were many hunger deaths in that year in the village.
What happened then….did the school run, did children learn, what about child marriages in that village, with whom had love happened…in the next posts.
oh my godddd……..
woww bhaiya 🙂
always wanted to know how you had started the project 🙂
thank you:) jaigurudev!
love
tanu
A very touching article. Great job, that u r doing. It is very easy to say but u r actually helping n doing so much for them. I really respect the work u put in. It requires lot of courage n divine touch (which u definately possess) to start a project in a barren land. People who r starving r brought towards education, a difficult task indeed. With our stomachs empty, we fail to understand a word. I can very well imagine the plight of those thousands of people there.