Mango Story – Shruti Nag, ASER center

Traversing through the length and breadth of Kanpur was a unique experience, but what made it really fascinating was the chance to meet so many children and get a brief glimpse into the many facets of their lives. We met the children in schools where they were attending classes and ‘learning to deal with their learning difficulties’ and interacting with anxious teachers forever worried about the children’s progress. We also met the children in their homes and houses. Often when we visited the students home the father would pull out the charpai and the mother would rush to fetch cold water and sweets and then sit-down to talk and share their worries, and in some cases their anger towards the system, with us. “Will school always remain this bad?” “Can’t the teachers be transferred away from their homes?” The questions of the parents were endless. But the children were not too bothered by all this; in fact as I soon realized the most interesting part of their day was the life that they, along with their friends, built and lived away from both their schools and homes. And in summers this invariably involved plucking and eating mangoes!

Visiting a school in Amruda, I decided to strike up conversation with a group of children. “What will you all do once the holidays begin?” I asked. “Padhai karenge”, “ghar ka kaam karenge” were some of the standard responses. A few said that they would go to their Nani’s house in the holidays. “Aamiya nahai khoage” I enquired. The Children were surprised by my question and some boys started giggling. “Aamiya khatam ho gaya, ab tapka milta hai” explained one. Seeing my puzzled expression Ayesha, my colleague, elaborated that ripe mangoes are called tapka. Now I wanted to know more. “How will one know if a mango is ripe if it is still on the tree” I questioned. “Ped se, Dashari ke ped chote hote hai aur Chausa ke bade” was the unanimous reply. “But I don’t recognize the types of mango trees, there must be a way for me to find out”, I continued. “You have to touch it and for that you need to know how to climb the trees” replied one boy. Sensing my dissatisfaction with the answer and maybe realizing that it was not likely that I would start climbing up mango trees anytime soon another boy volunteered that there is a specific time when mangoes ripen. “When is that time” I asked and pat came the reply “when the mali gets the khatiya out and starts sleeping in the garden”. This boy’s friend was also keen to share his knowledge. “Put the mango in carbide or keep it wrapped in straw for two days and it will ripen” he volunteered. Now I was really enjoying this conversation and decided to ask more questions. “So you all climb trees to get mangoes?”  I asked. Most of the children shook their heads and denied this with explanations like “our father gets it from the market”, “my mother scolds if I steal mangoes” etc. But Prakash, who was the eldest boy in the group, was very clear in his response, “hum sarkari ped par chadte hai, ped par chadne mein hi maza aata hai!”

As we moved on to the next school in Tigahi, I once again asked the students about picking mangoes in the summer. The children complained that they can’t get their fill of mangoes as the trees are too far away but here also some devised their own strategies to get the mangoes. Where there are fewer trees boys go to pick mangoes only with their best friends. “Jab sab jate hai to Jamni todne main fayda hai” was the explanation when the children were asked for the reasons.

The next day, I asked some children so how they share the mangoes after they have been picked. “Hum ped par char sakte hai isliye hume zyada milta hai” replied Rashid and Vijay, the strongest of the lot. “Why is that?” I queried. Their response was that not everyone can climb to the top of the trees, girls can’t, younger boys can’t. They can only keep a watch and collect the mangoes that have fallen from the trees and therefore they get fewer mangoes. “But the ones on the ground can easily hide some mangoes” I commented. Sapna immediately protested “aisa nahi hota, master ji ne kaha beimani nahi karte”. Vijay added “main jab chadta hoon aur girata hoon to ginta rehta hoon and I ensure that I get equal share for all”. Continuing with my ‘mango interrogation’ I asked “what if there are some green and some ripe mangoes, how do you divide them”. “Oh”, Rashid replied, “in such cases if you want green, you get one and if you want a ripe mango, you get half”. “So what do you do with the green ones” was my next question. “We give it to mummy to make achar,galkhand khatai” was the response of a young boy sitting nearby.

My conversation with the children on the topic of mangoes continued for a long time. I asked them what happens when the mali catches them but they replied that someone (usually the girls or younger siblings) always keeps a watch and therefore they always get away. This reply made Sapna chuckle and she mentioned that in time the mali does come to know about who is plucking the mangoes but by that time its too late! Getting caught by a mango was no something that these children like to talk bout. Only once did a bunch oif boys confessed that they were caught and locked up in a room, however they were quick to tell me that this happened only once and did not deter them from going to the same mango field again.I teased the children about not studying and spending all their time picking and eating mangoes and like all good children they said that they only picked mangoes in their spare time and when they are grazing cattle! And so on and on went our mango chatter.Talking to the children about mangoes seem to break down all barriers and the children were more that happy to share their considerable knowledge about plucking mangoes; their favorite summertime activity. Trying to get them back to the class I asked them “do you know any stories about mango, are they in your books” This elicited little response, may be this was related to a different world, a world they are at the threshold off now. We hope soon they will discover the joys of this new world of written word-the world of books.  

Shruti Nag
May 2005


Learning to teach : My adventures with English  

For me, the gates of the MCD School in Block 32 Trilokpuri lead to a new and different world. It is a world that I am very happy to be in. And I think it is a world that is happy to have me in it. Every time I come here, I am asked when will I start the English class again,  I have to shake hands with dozens of children and reply to numerous “Hello, how are you?” … questions and greetings. The sad part is that this is all that the children remember of my English teaching last year. And I hadn’t realized why this was the case till about a month back.

Sitting in a park on a pleasant winter afternoon, carrying a bag of books, Vinay and I were having a hard time keeping a bunch of 11-12 year olds busy. Nothing seemed to keep them occupied for more than a little while. Since all of them knew how to read, it hardly took any time to finish each simple colorful book. When I asked them what they wanted to do next, one boy replied “We have a science exam tomorrow. Can you help?” So began a long conversation about why leaves are green and how rains happens and so on . In the middle of the conversation, my cell phone rang and they heard me speaking in English. Now they wanted me to teach them English. So I asked a boy “What is your name, where do you live, which school do you go to?”  All of them, in a much-rehearsed manner, answered back with single word replies.  All their past English learning has been limited to answering such questions.

Suddenly a rat crossed the park. I said “Look there is a fat rat.  Ab batao what is a fat rat?”  The children said “Rat mane chuha”;and “what is fat?” I asked. The children were quiet, so I gave them a few hints. I took a book and said “This is a fat book”. I pointed to a tree and said ”This is a fat tree”.  The children looked puzzled.  I said “I am a fat woman and that is a fat rat.”  There was a loud noise “Fat mane mota”. I smiled to myself. The rat was really very fat!

A few days later I was sitting with a bunch of the kids in the same school where I taught last year.  This time, I was a lot more careful about what I spoke and better prepared with a set of Pratham books in English. These were stories that were familiar to them in Hindi and everyone said “isme ek ladka hai jo school jar aha hai par mummy kaam kar rahi hai…… isme papa dat te hai……” and so on. I opened the book and asked them to read.  Although the story was familiar, this time the book was in English.  There was silence; only one girl out of the dozen standing around me could read “there is a dark jungle….”.  The rest all of them murmured t.h.e.r.e. i.s a d.a.r.k-(the alphabets) and told me the story in Hindi.

I said, “Let me read out a story to you in English, and after that one of you can read on your own.  Just tell me which one you want to listen to”. Timmi and Pepe was the unanimous choice. So I started reading “I am Timmy, this is my……” On the third page I read aloud “I have nose, Pepe says”, all the children screamed “mere paas bhi naak hai”.  I repeated in English “I also have a nose…”, I continued till the end of the book in first person. Once I was done, I asked if anyone would read.  None agreed. So I read the story aloud again.  This time they played the role of Timmi and Pepe. I kept going and on the third page, there was a loud noise “I have also naak hai” said one child. I continued to read till at the end the noise became “I also have…” (in the correct form). Then we continued without the book with “I have a skirt, I have baal (hair), I have didi, what do you call a choodi?” This continued and at the end I wanted to say I also have brains.

These two separate incidents made me think about some common problems that had plagued my efforts last year. My earlier attempts were extremely teacher driven. I did not experiment much in terms of the methods. I did not make adequate use of books and most importantly I gave in before the children did.

My experiences have made me consider new possibilities:

• Spontaneous situations have a lot of learning opportunities and potential.  Reading out a known story in English or a telling them about an object and help them pick up words on their own or draw analogies between descriptions of different things like in the fat rat example. While I was testing the kids in Trilokpuri,  I asked one child who could read well and not understand what the word “wash” (it was part of the text) meant and he said that it meant ganda since we use washing machine to clean dirty clothes. I am sure there are many such words like toothpaste/cold drink

• Having a book also does away with the need of a teacher to control the process of teaching. She does not have to herself construct new sentences for the conversation or set up the names of objects she has to teach. With the book I just read out a meaningful conversation with a constant sentence structure and children picked it up. Also children knew the names of the body parts in English and they just understood what had been said through the pictures and constructed the sentence structure around it

• Like in Hindi, a lot of children from the private schools can read any simple English paragraphs without understanding a word. This is because there is loud reading in their classes however they do not understand the meaning because of a lack of consistency in the text. In the last attempt we took a sentence explained it and made the children cram it. This became boring after sometime and both written and oral had to be done separately. Here the familiar storyline facilitated the comprehension and the child just had to decode the written words (have, also) that were repeated regularly.

• I think we urgently will need a series like Timme and Pepe, children liked the story, identified with the characters, and there are good pictures and repeated sentence constructions in a conversation mode.

Walking into a MCD classes makes can evoke many reactions-anguish, helplessness, irritation, but never despair because of the children in the classes- their ability to laugh, have fun inside and spread the happiness around… this spirit remains the inspiration for all of us.

Shruti Nag
February 2005
New Delhi