Playing with diversity

Seven girls, six villages, five mother-tongues, two games, and one language of play!

Ranjan Rathawa, 12, Jyoti Bhil, 11, Sharmila Dhaki, 9, Kinjal Nayaka, 10, and Niral Rathawa, 10, are busy at a game in the playground of Vasant Shala, their residential primary school, situated at the base of Koraj Hill in the Adivasi village of Tejgadh in Gujarat’s Chhotaudepur district.

Adako daduko dahi daduko
Shravan gaje, pillu paake….

It is a song from a vast repertoire of bad-bad geeto, or nonsense rhymes in Gujarati, that children across the state use while playing. The curious thing is that the language of the rhyme is not the mother tongue of anyone in the group. The five girls speak to their families, living in villages within a 30 to 50 kilometre radius from their school, in their own Adivasi languages like Rathawi, Dhanaki, Dungara Bhili, Nayaki. But it is mainstream Gujarati that has become their link language on this campus of the Adivasi Academy, where their school and hostels are situated.

Vasant Shala, though, is a multi-lingual experiment in education committed to providing schooling to Adivasi children without disrupting their connection to their culture and community. In this school, about 90 kilometres away from Vadodara in Gujarat, the children are encouraged to use their own languages and most of the teaching until Class 3 relies on local reference points for imparting knowledge. Formal learning of Gujarati is introduced only in Class 4.

The parents of the children who stay and study at Vasant Shala are largely poor, migrant labourers, who for most of the year are on the move in search of livelihood, making it difficult for them to find decent schooling for their children. It is difficult to say whether it is the migration and interaction with other, often dominant communities, that has allowed Gujarati to make in-roads in their culture. Or whether it is another kind of necessity driven by the reality that they must be prepared eventually to be part of the traditional education system. A need that makes it imperative for them to learn and speak the language with some ease.

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“Have maro vaaro [It’s my turn now]” says Lakshmi gently and softly in Gujarati to Elisa, sitting across her. She takes the little twig to hide under an elongated pile of sand they have made between them. They are playing kathiyu shodhvani ramat (‘Find the twig’ game), on the other side of the same school compound. Elisa Bhil, 11, from Ambadungar village in Kavant taluka speaks Bhili at home, and Lakshmi Nayaka, 11, from Dhorkuva village speaks Nayaki. Their game, like most traditional ones, requires few or no resources. Here, all you need is some sand and two players. The sand is gathered into a long pile, and one player hides a small wooden stick inside the pile. The other player has to find the concealed stick to get her turn at hiding it next.

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