Learning to read Musahar dreams

"Put your heart into your studies. You can be an inspiration to other children in your community."

I must have been in Class 9 when Jitendra Sharma sir said those words to me in front of the entire class. I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t utter a word then. It was for the first time that someone had shown such faith in me, a Musahar boy. His words kept playing in my mind even as I walked home. "You can be an inspiration..." I had never thought that way about myself.

That was the day when for the first time I understood that perhaps my education was not just about me. It may give courage to others around me to pursue their studies as well. I started working even harder. Every time circumstances plotted against me, I held on to Sharma sir’s words to steady my resolve. How far the word of a teacher goes! What a difference it makes! I realise that Sharma sir not only knew how to teach math, he could read the hidden potential of his students.

A teacher doesn’t just show you how to read books, a good one teaches you to read your dreams.

I am Ashish Nand, 25, from Majhawa village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district. We are Musahars. People hear a lot of things about my community, but they rarely understand us. The very word Musahar conjures up images of poverty, manual labour, and deprivation in their minds. I am sure there is some truth to it. For generations we have been among the most marginalised people in society. In Uttar Pradesh they put us in the Scheduled Caste list. Our ancestors also had no land, no steady employment and income. We are Dalits. Education has not been our privilege. Unlike some of the poor Brahmims in the village, it has never been a part of our lives.

Even today, I know of families in our village who must worry as soon as they wake up about securing one meal by the end of the day. When life is a struggle to survive every 24 hours, education becomes a distant dream. Growing up I rarely saw children from our neighbourhood going to school. Those who did, dropped out midway – some for financial reasons, others to go on wage labour, and some were married off really early.

Though I believe that a community’s identity is not its status on the poverty line but the hidden potential of its people. We have had our dreams too. The difference is that the opportunities we get to realize those dreams have always been too scarce.

Today when I see a child from my community smiling with a book in her hand, I am reminded of my childhood days.

My father, Pappu Banvasi was the sole earner responsible for looking after our family of eight. He was a daily wage labourer. He would leave home early in the morning and wouldn’t return till late evening – tired after a day’s hard labour. I never saw my father rest at home. He was toiling away to ensure a better future for us. My mother, Abha Devi, would give him a hand if and when she found some agricultural wage work.

My parents never stopped any of us five brothers from going to school, even though they themselves had never been to one. They must have believed that education could be the first step towards changing our lives.

We were always besieged by uncertainties in life. There were days when we struggled to meet even basic needs. But that never interfered with my schooling. I enjoyed my studies and some of the teachers had noticed my dedication. Slowly, the school had become a place where I dreamt of a world beyond my village.

I stepped into that world when I first went to college – Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith, 30 kilometres away from my village. I was the first one to go out to study. But things were not smooth. We were always short of money and the demands of a big family were persistent. Then mother’s health started deteriorating. There was no one to take care of the house, so my family got me married in 2020. I was still in the first year of my college. Our financial situation worsened though it all.

In the midst of all that, I completed my graduation. It was a huge achievement in my family. I was the first one to have graduated with a BA in Hindi in 2022. My parents were confident about my future now and happy. I was dreaming of becoming a teacher.

But then suddenly responsibilities began to replace my dreams. My wife was pregnant with our first child. Mother continued to be unwell. Father’s wages were not enough to take care of things. As the eldest son, I felt the weight of many responsibilities slowly shifting on to my shoulders. There was such a storm in my heart in those days. At night I would dream of continuing my education and in the morning, I would look around and think otherwise. Finally, I started going for daily wage work, earning merely 500 rupees a day.

After a year I started driving an autorickshaw on rent, hoping to earn more. The first day I took the vehicle on the roads my mind was restless. I felt ashamed. Not because I ever thought of any kind of work performed honestly as below one’s dignity. But there was some lingering ache in my heart. I who could not take myself to achieve my goal was ensuring that the passengers reached their destination. I realised my dream was still alive inside me.

Every time my auto went past a school, or I spotted a child smiling in her uniform my heart would skip a beat. And if ever I got a teacher to ride in my auto, I would strike a conversation and memories of Jitendra Sharma sir would flood my mind. I would remember his words and wonder about my life.

A year later somewhere in 2024 my Bua, father’s sister, who was working with an NGO Muheem, told me they were looking for fellows for their leadership programme. They wanted people from within the Musahar social group (where literacy rates have been abysmal at just about three per cent in my region) to mentor young children of our own community from the village, for two years.

I applied for the Muheem Leader Fellowship, designed in collaboration with Teach For India’s incubation (TFIx) programme. Honestly speaking, I never thought I would get selected, but the opportunity seemed life changing. Then a door that had been shut for years suddenly swung open as I got selected and joined the programme.

I learnt innovative teaching methods. For the first time, I heard about activity-based learning, teaching through storytelling, using games to impart knowledge of math and language. I started using digital tools and began working in a collaborative learning environment with children. The more I learnt the more I felt that teaching was not about reading books to children. It was about helping them realise that they can learn and succeed in their life, change its direction. As a teacher I have to ignite curiosity among children, give them the courage to ask questions, and direction to follow their dreams.

Initially, the 30 students I worked with were very shy. They hardly spoke in the class, and many didn’t believe they were capable of reading and writing. Seeing them often reminded me of my own childhood. I knew that lack of self-confidence is scarier than poverty. So, I decided that I was not just going to teach, I was going to make them believe in themselves.

Slowly, a bond formed between us. They started trusting me, sharing the smallest details of their lives with me. There was a young child called Samar, about 6-7 years old, in our class who always sat behind all the other students and rarely spoke. If I were to ask him to read or recite something, he would simply look down. I was patient with him, but I had not given up.

One day I gently told him that if he were to read just two lines in the class, it would mean the world to me. That day he did not look down. He stood up with some hesitation, his voice trembled as he read:

Hara hara tota, hara hara tota
daal pakadkar sota, kala jamum khata
khoob maje se ud jaata

[Greenish green parrot, greenish green parrot
Sleeping on the branches tight

Pecking on black jamuns bright
Flies away in the happy skies]

When he finished there was a huge applause from the rest of the students. Samar looked up, smiled and my eyes welled up with pride and joy. Teaching is no profession; it’s a responsibility and for once I felt I had managed to perform it. My fellowship will end next month in September. I am not sure the course my life will take after that.

But today as I stand in front of my students, I know that they do not see me as a teacher they have to fear, but as a person from their own village, who comes from a family just like theirs. Maybe Sharma sir was right after all. Maybe is what it means to be an inspiration.

This story was originally reported in Hindi

The reporter would like to thank Swati Singh, the Founder and Director of Muheem-Ek Sarthak Pryas Welfare Society in Varanasi and Teach for India team for their support