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Neha; The Story So Far...

8/3/2017

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When I arrived in India, I quickly realised that I was going to meet many people whose stories deserved telling. This was perhaps not because they were particularly unusual, but because they would demonstrate a kind of tenacious determination that I feel is becoming eroded in the west, where many people have learned to take so much more for granted and where relative comforts have, in many cases, made it easier to accept the status quo. I’m not sure this has always been the case though, and I think we’d do well to be reminded of our potential for self-improvement and social development. I didn’t get to write as many of these stories as I’d hoped; I have learned it takes a good deal of time to research the facts, let alone write such a biography well enough to do it justice, especially when your subject has a busy schedule. That’s before you’ve accepted the fact that everything just seems to take longer in India, too! However, there was one story that I was determined not to leave without writing. This is Neha, who is also the first person whose story I realised really needed to be shared. Neha is also one of the first people connected with Aryaloka that I met when she visited the UK in June of 2016 as part of a trip to Europe, having been commissioned to film a documentary about how people from the Romany Gypsy community in Hungary have found inspiration and strength in the work of Dr Ambedkar. This in itself is indicative of the kind of woman she is; you have to be a pretty remarkable person to get such an opportunity when you’ve started life in the conditions she experienced.
Neha is the youngest of three sisters but also has a younger brother. This is significant and the family stops here for a reason. As with many traditional Indian families, her father, if not her mother, was waiting for a boy. What might in other circumstances have been a joyous occasion therefore lacked celebration, in fact ‘Papa’ was so disappointed to have yet another daughter that he became angry with her ‘Mama’ and refused to even see Neha for a month after her birth, professing hate for the new arrival. It’s of no surprise that Neha goes on to reflect on her childhood as ‘not very happy’.
Despite the controversy of her gender, she says she did feel loved at home, though I personally think this is little more
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A recent coffee date!
than a testament to the strength of her mother, a generous and kind lady who I have met on several occasions. Her family could not afford treats or gifts and this in itself caused, and was caused by, a good deal of sorrow. ‘A normal child is playing and joyous’ Neha tells me, describing an idea she has of what a young life should be, not wanting for things such as chocolate and toys, ‘our family was not like that’. The sorry reason for the lack of funds will be well known to many. Until the age of 11, Neha’s Papa was heavy drinker. He was regularly home late and drunk, beating her Mama. He was earning, as he still is, as a rickshaw driver, but much of what he earned was spent on alcohol.
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By the reservoir at Bordheran
At the end of 6th standard, Neha was ill at the time of her exams and she failed. Papa was very angry and decided she would spend the summer going to work with him as a punishment for poor studies. The cycle rickshaw he used was heavy and he was weakened by drinking. Neha’s job was, therefore, to walk behind the cart and push. This was not a passenger vehicle, as he now operates, but a goods service and unfortunately, his main occupation was delivering alcohol to bars, perhaps not how he developed an alcohol addiction in the first place, but certainly not helping him recover from it. Mama found work as a cleaner, going door to
door and working in people’s homes. They all put in long hours in order to keep the family of six fed and clothed, despite their challenges. As I listen to Neha describe her upbringing, I can’t help but ask how she thinks the allotted social status of being from a Scheduled Caste (ex untouchable) family has impacted upon their lives. It’s a question I feel slightly awkward asking, and one I feel I have phrased in the clumsy terms of one who really doesn’t understand the hierarchical system they are questioning. It is perhaps too broad a question to be useful, too unsubtle to get to the heart of the matter. At least she does not seem offended by it, responding simply by saying that most of Indian society would dismiss the difficulties her family faced as the inevitable life of low caste status. A ‘put up and shut up’ attitude that does not empower people to develop either personally or socially. This is your lot. Accept it.

Though these circumstances put her at a disadvantage in many ways, Neha certainly learned to be a hard worker, particularly in school and she successfully passed 10th standard, moving on to 11th and 12th with no difficulty. At least she had no social distractions to keep her from her college studies; she was very shy and withdrawn, she recalls. She graduated from 12th class with good marks, but with no friends and few reasons to be happy. As something of a vote of confidence, she was advised by her teachers to train as a chartered accountant, which is considered to be a very good, and certainly well paid job. There is an entrance exam to continue studies in this field though, and while she could certainly have passed, she was not able to afford the course fees so she gave up on this idea and enrolled onto a Bachelor of Commerce degree instead.
One day, a neighbour who knew she enjoyed drawing and painting, called on Neha for company while she enquired about a six month animation course. The course cost 15,000 rupees and her neighbour decided she wasn’t interested; but Neha certainly was! She applied and paid the 1000 rupee deposit with all the money she had and no idea where or when she'd get the rest. Knowing she may be forced to leave after the first month, she studied hungrily and learned fast, often being asked for help by her peers! This also encouraged her to become more social and after confiding in a friend on the course about her uncertain place on the course, she was helped to get a job working as a Photoshop operator in a photo studio. The director of the studio drove a hard bargain, asking why she deserved payment if she was inexperienced and unqualified. She explained her situation, that she only wanted the remaining 14,000 to continue the animation course, offering to work every day if needed. Her enthusiasm, if not yet her skills must have been impressive and so she secured the job and the security of finishing her course. During this time, she rose early every morning to help with household work, leaving at six every morning to attend the animation course before working in the photo studio. Her day also included continued study on the Bachelor of Commerce course as well as office work, and yet more study when she returned home not normally until after 9pm, finally ending her day around midnight. After a month at the studio, the manager was sufficiently impressed that he helped her get a scholarship on the animation course and began paying her an actual wage, which she put straight into supporting her family.
This was not just a time of development and personal transformation for Neha. After attending a one day retreat led by Subhuti at Nagaloka, at which he is reported to have had a bottle of wine conveniently stashed in a nearby bush, her papa stopped drinking. One of Neha’s domestic duties had been to prepare tobacco for her father, rolling it into betel leaves to make paan for chewing; but when he came home from the retreat that day, he did not want paan. After two days, he had stopped drinking and now, she tells me proudly, he doesn't even drink chai, taking only milk in the morning and water throughout the day. Neha and her family had thought they enjoyed the freedom of Papa being away for a day on the retreat but could never have guessed how their lives might change as a result of it; no more shouting, no more anger, no more violence.

In 2007, as he continued to attend classes and events at Nagaloka, Papa met Aryaketu (director of Aryaloka) and heard him discussing various creative projects, including those involving animation; he didn’t waste much time in detailing his daughter’s experience and asking about opportunities for her. Aryaketu was looking for help making a comic about Buddhist teachings and so he offered her a chance to demonstrate her skills, agreeing that if her work was of a good standard she would be paid for it. Now she was involved in the Triratna community, Neha’s drive and potential was beginning to get noticed. By the time Shakyajata was organising and recruiting for the first batch of Young Indian Futures students, three different people, all order members, had separately recommended her, keen to support her progress if possible. As such, Neha became resident in the first community of young women, living and studying at the old building in Indora.
PictureNeha at the family home with Mama and Papa
She finished the course at Aryaloka, very happily in 2009, with as much success as one might expect, knowing a little of her determination. She learned English and new creative software such as Maya, also improving her skills in other programmes such as Photoshop. Here, she felt confident for the first time too and made friends with the other eight women in the community, a bigger social group than she had ever previously known. She felt free for the first time too, and even found the confidence to speak with boys, challenging her own preconceptions that they must necessarily be up to no good, realising through this interaction that they were just as human as she, and also capable of good things! Critically, she also learned about the Dhamma and deepened her practice of metta (loving kindness). As the outstanding student of the first cohort, she was invited back the next year for a paid opportunity, teaching animation to the second year of students.

Of course things weren’t always perfect and she recalls the challenge of being away from her family for the first time, at least, she considers, she was not located too far away, which made it easier to adjust and she felt mentally prepared. Making good friends in the community helped too, and though there were quarrels at times, she felt able to stay out of them and not get involved. English was also a challenge for her, though she recalls memories of learning with Shakyajata and fellow UK teacher, Priyadaka, with great affection. She remembers creating a rangoli welcome for Shakyajata and when she finally arrived, such had been the depth of their correspondence by email that she did not feel it was the first time they had met. She vividly describes their first meeting, an emotional occasion where the tears flowed. She laughs at the memory; ‘that time, I am mad! I don’t know why!’ One thing she’s quite clear on though, is the crucial role that the opportunity at Aryaloka played in her development and current life. ‘If I didn’t study there, I wouldn’t be here now’ she states firmly. She didn’t leap straight into employment beyond Aryaloka; however and still faced difficulties turning her knowledge and skills into an income. She travelled as far as Pune, Deli and Mumbai for interviews, with mixed results. For some vacancies, she was still considered too inexperienced, for some, she achieved successful offers, yet her family would not allow her to live alone and so far away. Such is the disadvantage of girls in India, even those with clear talents and ambitions.
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Celebrating her last birthday!
By this time, Papa had not just allowed his discovery of Buddhism to improve his own life, he’d shared it with his whole family, who were now all practicing. Neha didn’t take long to fully embrace the opportunity to become more involved in the Dhamma either and became a Mitra of the Triratna order in 2010. She requested ordination in 2016. In 2011, her hard work finally paid off. She heard from her brother in law of a vacancy for a graphic designer at Lord Buddha TV, an alternative news channel based in Nagpur that broadcasts across the whole of India. After taking her show reel to interview, she was offered the job, a role she still more than fills, frequently spilling over into a myriad of peripheral duties with her multiple talents. It’s hard to imagine someone more dedicated to their employment, especially when the small organisation does not always have a smooth cash flow to enable timely payment of salaries. This is more than a job to Neha though; it’s not just an opportunity to engage in her creative passions either. Far more importantly than that, it is a way of helping to spread the word of the Dhamma and help others find ways to ease their own suffering. After all, such teachings affected a great deal of positive change in her own life and to share this potential is a key motivator for her.
Her success in employment is also something she attributes to her time at Aryaloka. ‘I met Triratna, I learned about Buddha and Dr Ambedkar’, she says, learning that she feels she wouldn’t have got at any other institution. She does not believe she would be working at LBTV either, does not feel she would have found this opportunity to combine her Dhamma practice and her practical skills. In fact, she believes even the longevity of her job (she has seen many other members of staff come and go) is thanks to the depth of her practice and passion, which she would not have got from any other college. ‘I wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway’ she reflects.
Her time at Aryaloka has positively affected those around her too. After she began teaching and earning an income, she was able to support them to live much more comfortably. Her commitment to practice has also helped, feeding into and strengthening that of the whole family.
Thinking back to our conversation as a write this, a snatched hour round the back of the stupa at Bordheran during a busy schedule filming the talks by Subhuti at the NNBY 10th Annual Convention, I realise that I have, in some ways set myself an impossible task. I can’t write Neha’s story yet, for despite the rich material in her first two decades, her story is far from complete, a fact she is all too aware of herself; this is not a fairy tale ending. ‘Is there anything else you think I should mention?’ I ask, half exhausted already from recording the details of so many trials and tribulations. ‘Yes!’ she responds, ‘My struggle is not finished!’ Every day at work is challenging, with more tasks than she can complete. She’s working on big stories too, broadcasting the talks and activities of some of the most senior order members, so there’s a lot of pressure to do so successfully, pressure that she doesn’t always even get paid for, when a key advertising client has not paid their fees, or the tiny channel has simply run out of cash.

She’s had problems with colleagues as well, and recently encountered difficulties with bullying and blame, causing her to return home in tears every nights for a long spell. Her mum supported her through these problems though, and with this help she found the strength to stick it out, not reacting to or fuelling such unpleasant behaviour. Her skills and good will have also been stretched professionally; she was originally employed as an animator but when her manager left after just one month, her future was uncertain. At this time, she only knew how to work in 2D and animation software but the channel director liked her work and asked her to stay on in a different role, as an editor. For this, she taught herself how to work in entirely new editing software because no one else at the company would teach her. It was a similar story when she was invited to run her own programme.
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Filming Subhuti at Bordheran
 Colleagues behaved angrily and with jealousy when she achieved recognition for her work and so she had to learn a substantial set of new skills in filming; suddenly finding herself in the deep end with no camera man willing to work with her, presenting the programmes herself too, despite being very shy and having to learn all this completely on the go.

There’s another reason her story is not yet finished too; in fact, she has just started yet another new chapter as a newlywed, to Maitri, also a Mitra who has requested ordination and who works running a shop and restaurant as enterprises offering services to visitors at Nagaloka. Maitri is originally from Arunachal Pradesh, a northern state of India, with different customs, languages,
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Resplendent as a bride...
 lifestyles and cultures. This in itself has been something of an issue for the couple; interstate marriages are not common and it took some time for Neha to ease the concerns of her family and achieve their blessings. Not that I suspect it would have stopped her if they’d maintained their disapproval. Aware of the imminent wedding, and as a somewhat excited guest, I was pleased for the opportunity to grill Neha on a happier issue; how did you meet? How do you think your life will be different after the wedding? What are your plans for your future as a couple? At this, she wrinkles her nose and asks ‘It is important?’ She tells me, after a joke dismissal of the question, that whatever happens, she plans to spend at least the next two years spreading the Dhamma through her work at LBTV. There will certainly be no children in the short term. In the long term, who knows? She remains uncommitted beyond her drive to become ordained, and this is something she feels they will be working for together, as Dhamma practitioners. ‘Maitri tells me we will be a team’ she says, ‘there will not be “your work” and “my work” in the home; we both have jobs, we will share the house work.’

There were other concerns too, of course; any young person about to enter into a lifetime commitment may be expected to feel somewhat anxious about such things and, I realised, when talking as a friend, not as an interviewer, that what from a Western perspective is a distinct lack of relationship experience was adding to these worries. I found that particular conversation very difficult at times and really got the sense that though Neha was indeed happy with the idea of getting married to Maitri, this was perhaps still in the context of feeling that she didn’t have much choice about whether or not she got married at all. ‘It’s not too late!’ I felt like saying, ‘run away with me!’ but knowing that would not be helpful, I contented myself with simply listening to her concerns and making it clear that I was willing to continue to do so at any time. If I can trust anyone to have made the right choice for themselves, I feel sure it’s Neha. She had at one time, she tells me, entertained the idea of leaving India entirely and becoming a nun, in order to fully commit to her practice and avoid marriage entirely. This, she feels is a more sensible and balanced approach that will allow her to stay connected with her family and probably to do more meaningful Dhamma work.
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Pakora success!
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And the new husband chips in!
Any fears I, or indeed she may have had, have happily melted since the wedding and Maitri’s promise at least with regards to housework certainly seems to stand true; the wedding was in January, and I received an invitation to dinner shortly after the couple returned from some time away with Neha’s new family. Sure enough, alongside Neha in the kitchen, Maitri was chopping, cooking and washing up too. We had a fine meal, with Maharashtrian specialties cooked up by Neha, (including her first, very successful, attempt at pakora!) and some home treats prepared by Maitri. They seemed happy and relaxed together too, a relief to me, with my cultural preconceptions about equality and gender roles in marriage. Neha is glowing, smiling, as busy as ever at work, but still capable of telling me that she is very happy. Not yet quite a fairy tale ending perhaps, but a very joyful pit stop if nothing else, and it’s certainly a union that’s blessed from the start. There are not many weddings, I think, to which Subhuti, a very busy and senior order member, would fly all the way from Pune and back in the same day to officiate.

Neha is clear that she never would have believed it to be possible for her to be living as she does now. This isn’t a matter of luck though, it’s sheer hard work, raw belief and pure determination that has achieved it. Yes, certain opportunities have arisen for her, but none that would have occurred without her own drive and motivation to realise the fruits of them. ‘If you had a message, for people in the UK who might read your story, if they are Buddhist, or if they are not, what would it be?’ I ask as a concluding thought, unsure that I will be able to articulate her experiences well enough myself to communicate the lesson that I know so many could learn from her example. She looks a little taken back at a difficult question and is thoughtful for a moment.
‘I face difficulties and challenges in my life’ she states, ‘but friendship is most important.’ People, she says, are all the same and we have the same feelings. ‘I know what it's like to be hurt, so I believe in not hurting others. Respect each other. Treat others as you want be treated.’ This, she believes, is what has got her through.
I’ve met many people in India, many of them have told me impressive tales of triumph over adversity, many of them I now feel honoured to count among my friends. I am sure, too, that I shall return when possible, to continue what I’ve left and that I shall meet many of them again. I don’t think, however, that there is anyone else I’ve met in my time here in whom I recognise that spark of deeper connection, a truly common perspective on the world and of our places in it, the kind of friendship you have where you almost instinctively realise a complete trust that this person will be around for the rest of your life, regardless of the circumstances you find yourselves in or the distances between you. If I think hard about it, I can actually only say I’ve met 3 or maybe 4 other people in my entire life with whom I feel such a connection, who I would call my ‘best friends’ and funnily enough, they all live in completely different countries.
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Caught mid-interview at Bordheran!
As I near the end of my first stay in India, I think of all the people I am going to leave behind, all the people I shall miss. Strangely, Neha is not among them and I think it is due to the strength of the bond I feel with her that this is the case. I shan’t miss her because in every important way, she’ll still be with me. I’m not sure where, or when, Neha and I will next meet, but I do feel sure that while her story is not over, she is going to somehow play an continued and important part in mine.
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In With the New

15/1/2017

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The New Year itself started with a flurry of activity that was completely unrelated to any coincidence of the calendar and so the whole event had come and gone with very little recognition. However, there’s a certain English phrase that goes something along the lines of ‘better late than never’ and so it was this approach that we took to the question of the student New Year party. It was, after all, only a week late, which by Indian standards of flexible scheduling is practically early. Anyway, young people rarely need an excuse for a bit of fun, or so you’d think, so we duly shared the various organisational tasks (you buy the fizzy drink, I’ll get the paper cups) and arranged to get started at 6pm on Sunday the 8th.

Now, I’ve a fair bit of experience of trying to organise teenagers into having fun and you’d be surprised how difficult it can be. Sugary snacks, music and permission to not study despite the presence of your teachers, do not a party make. There was a little of the awkward school disco about the first half an hour or so but eventually, once the drink kicked in (I’m talking sugar rush here, of course) things livened up a bit and we even got a bit of self-conscious dancing… which is, after all the best kind. However, it soon became clear that proceedings would not become any more festive of their own accord and so after a good deal of encouragement (read goading?) from both the groups, Mark and I took the floor for some self-conscious dancing of an entirely different kind. If there was ice to be broken, we were gonna smash it into oblivion.
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Ready to get the party started!
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A quick meeting of minds... "what about the one where you mime sticking a deckchair up your nose?"
By proving that nobody could look as ridiculous as us, hopefully everybody would feel a bit more relaxed about having a boogie themselves. I started my set with the instinctive moves of one who grew up in mosh pits and happily launched into a sequence of head banging. After some time, I allowed this to blend, seamlessly I’m sure, into the kind of lolloping pogo as performed by your average unwashed, summer festival living, dreadlocked tree hugger before realising I should branch out to include a wider audience and regressing into the kind of shoulder slinking, hip swinging sashay best demonstrated by an 80’s starlet on Top of the Pops. Miming, thankfully, was not required as there was very little Hindi on the track that had been selected for us. Which went on. And on. And on. You think the Duracell Bunny has moves? It’s got nothing on a pair of desperate foreign  teachers who are trying to work out which form of stem verb plus ‘ing’ they could tease out of some dodgy dancing for a quick revision class on Monday morning. Finally, it ended and we flopped into sweaty heaps at the side of the classroom, like one of those old toys where you push the base up and make the little wooden animal collapse. After a breather, we reconvened and surveyed the wider effects of our grooves. There was certainly more dancing, however, I couldn’t help notice that this was completely gender segregated and so I decided to introduce the concept of the conga in the hope that I might generate a current of movement and mix things up a bit. After no more than about three minutes of mild confusion, the line broke up and sure enough like oil and water, boys magnetised to the side of the room nearest the door (for a quick escape?!) and the girls to the end near the drinks table (possibly for an equally quick opportunity to be doing something other than dancing?). After a quick confluence, we decided to bring out the big guns and loaded the Locomotion onto Youtube. How, reasoned the Annabeth Brain, can a group of young girls fail to go giddy for a bit of Kylie?! Ah yes. The generation gap. The language barrier. The cultural gulf. Well, I had fun anyway. Mark then led a round of YMCA, which this was tolerated politely with much the same air of befuddled humouring before we conceded, gratefully, to the perimeter, safe in the knowledge that we had done our duty. Thankfully, from this point on, the real stars took over, and finally, though I had to accept that the centuries old tide of cultural gender separation were not going to be turned back in a single party, the embarrassment and awkwardness had given way to genuine fun.
Eventually, the party food was distributed (samosas, what English people will know as ‘Bombay mix’ and salted oily chillies) and I was encouraged to demonstrate my apparently surprising skills of eating chillies that even Indians consider too hot (who knew those days of University Food Dares would set me up so well with the skills I needed for my professional future!?). True to form, once the food was gone, so was the party spirit (food always comes last at Indian functions, it seems) and the boys slipped off into the night to catch the bus. I tried a last bit of dancing with the girls (they’re a bit non-plussed by House of Pain too, sadly) but eventually even that petered out and we were all in bed by ten!

That might sound like something of a party flop by some standards but actually it was for the best as the next day was scheduled to be equally full of jubilation. The other Aryaloka centre in Nagpur where my colleague Mark lives, and which houses the boys community, has been in an ongoing process of construction since day one. The ground floor has been open and functioning since the start but the second floor is only just finished and though we have been teaching (and in some cases living!) in it we have actually been working around a bit of a building site. Last month; however, the toilet cubicle got a door, the kitchen became functional, the impressive new shrine was installed and the shiny tiled floors were swept clear of builders dust for the last time. January then, became the month to celebrate this fact and on the 9th, we held an inauguration ceremony on the new floor.
This was attended by our students, the teachers and several local Triratna Order Members, with a dedication ceremony conducted by Shakyajata and Khemadhamma, from Australia, both of whom have been supporting Aryaloka in various ways since the conception. They each gave talks after the puja, describing their experience of the history and aspirations for the future of the institute. Mark and I were then called up. Going last is never an easy trick; your audience is feeling evermore fidgety and the previous speakers have probably made all the salient points but I fell back on my love of analogy and muttered something about people being like buildings. That’s not as bad as it sounds, the point I was trying to make was that we are built ourselves
from bricks of experience, skilfully constructed but perhaps never really finished, so we should try not to limit ourselves prematurely and remember we can always build another floor. It seemed to be well received anyway and several people approached me after the event as well as in the days following to say they had appreciated my sentiments. Of course, no celebration would be complete without full tummies and so after a few more talks from visiting order members, proceedings gave way to a very fine spread, which was enjoyed by all.
So it may not have lined up with the calendar but even if it wasn’t technically a great start to the new year, it was certainly an excellent way to start a new week! Full of promise, blossoming with potential and bubbling with joy!

Due to the untimely sickness of my digital SLR, most of these photos are stolen from colleagues' Facebook feeds! With thanks and apologies!

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New Year, New State

12/1/2017

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It is not easy to take good photos on a moving train!
With only about 12 hours turnaround between returning from the NNBY convention and heading out of Nagpur once more, the fact that it was New Year’s Eve seemed pretty academic, and actually, if it hadn’t been for the hearty cries of ‘Happy New Year’ at midnight, I think I would have been completely unaware that it was even happening. We were heading to Raipur on an 06:30 train out of Kamptee (the stop after Nagpur and a little closer to the education centre in Bhilgaon) and this would be my first experience of a different state (Raipur is in Chhattisgarh) as well as on an Indian train. The purpose of our trip was to visit the branch of Aryaloka Computer Education run by ex-Nagpurian students Satish and Sanjaya; to give them a little support and meet the students benefitting from their tuition. We were only scheduled to be there for one night; a fact I queried given the extent of the five hour train journey.  Since we were going all that way, I wondered if it would not be better to have at least two nights, maybe spend a bit more time with the students, even run a workshop or two. I was greeted with nonplussed indifference by Aryaketu who couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Five hours, he informed me patiently, is not a long train journey.
I had been told to expect delays; Indian trains, a bit like Indian everything else, do not run on time. At least, they run in their own time, a unique temporal framework that most Indians seem to tick along quite happily in synch with, but would drive most Europeans to distraction. I can’t remember if our train was due at 06:00 and arrived at 06:30 or was due at 06:30 and arrived at 07:00, which probably goes to show I am making some headway with regards to accepting a more relaxed schedule. Either way, it was only half an hour difference between the roughly predicted arrival time and the reality, which isn’t bad at all, even by British standards. I’ve certainly been delayed longer by trains in England.
I found the experience of train travel was equally a lot more pleasant than I had thought might be the case, though I expect this had a lot to do with the fact that we had bought quite expensive tickets to ride in ‘Three Tier AC’. This means the bunks stack three on top of one another (trains seem to be furnished as sleeper carriages by standard, probably due to the sheer distances involved) and the carriage has air conditioning. So, our travel wasn’t quite as swanky as ‘Two Tier AC’, but was a good deal more comfortable than ‘second class’, or even ‘general’ carriages; but then they probably
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Not exactly Michael Palin... But I can pretend...
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The design of that station sign looks... familiar...
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Along the carriage...
don’t really need air-conditioning since there’s not usually any glass in the windows. All in all, I really quite enjoyed the train. Once I’d clambered into my drop down bunk (I’d thought I might sit up in it but this wasn’t really an option so I reclined instead), the only thing disturbing the gentle rocking of the train was the calls of various vendors passing up and down the carriage selling ‘CHAI!’, ‘DOSA!’ or, intriguingly ‘CHIPSY BISCUITS!’ Now, I’ve felt desperate for a cup of tea once in a while but I’ve never realised it could be such an urgent business as to require quite so much volume, but never mind. As for the ‘chipsy biscuits’… I’m afraid I unadventurously left those to the imagination.
Despite the minor ‘reality shift’ in terms of our departure time, we arrived in Raipur reasonably on schedule and were met by Satish, who had organised a car to take us a local order member’s home. Here, we were greeted with a far more sedate cup of chai before being served lunch. The food was very similar to what I’d been told was standard Maharashtrian fare and I enquired about the difference with Chhattisgarhi dishes. Actually, it turned out the family were Maharashtrians which explained the familiarity!

After lunch, we had a little rest before meeting a large group of students in the family’s very impressive shrine room. The young people who had come to meet with us on the first day were all ex-students and had completed their studies with Aryaloka in the previous year. We were keen to meet with them to establish how successful they had been in their post-study ambitions; had they found employment? Were they continuing in study? Had they stayed in Raipur or returned to their villages? A great many of them were still studying, either in the equivalent of English 6th Form and Further Education, still working through their 11th or 12th Standard classes, or in first, second or even third years of BA or BSc courses.

There is not currently any provision for full time study as enjoyed by our men’s and women’s communities in Nagpur, however the courses offered by Aryaloka can frequently be fitted in around other commitments. Many of the young people we spoke to on the first day had been able to find employment following the course, often in accounting departments owing to their new skills in the programme Tally, and thanks to this were able to pay their course fees and support themselves whilst studying, or in many cases, pay their course fees, support themselves and financially assist their families, also while studying. It certainly set a contrast against the British system of support during study, despite the changes and controversy in recent years. There is absolutely no expectation or assumed right to education here; there’s no doubt in any mind that it is a privilege to be valued and paid for. The other outstanding observation I made and found very touching was the readiness with which most students expressed their gratitude, not just to the institute that is Aryaloka, but personally to Shakyajata. They were quite open in sharing an awareness that without her support and tuition, they would not be enjoying the benefits of their studies, nor feeling even half as optimistic about the future.

Another heart-warming discovery was the perceived role that the Dharma study had played in their development; a majority of the group were quite clear that this was an important element in their studies that had equipped them to deal successfully with many of life’s trials and tribulations in a balanced and trouble-free way. Two groups of young women had even set up their own communities since leaving and were supporting each other in their practice. They told us that this had been a unique benefit of the Aryaloka course, which they would not have found at another education provider.
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Shakyajata receiving well earned thanks!
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The (not so) old students gather!
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Satish outside the centre in Raipur
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The tiny but much appreciated computer room!
Our schedule for the second day involved saying a grateful farewell to our hosts and their beautiful home. I was most impressed by the gardens; a roof terrace, watered by hand for at least an hour before breakfast and an equally well kept front garden with the first lawn I’ve seen since leaving England! Chhattisgarh seems wetter than Nagpur and is famous for particularly vicious mosquitoes as a result! We then took a car journey into the centre of Raipur to visit the Computer Centre and meet some current students. Sanjay and Satish again welcomed us and we were shown into a building that made me really appreciate the facilities in Nagpur. A tiny little building with not more than 6 or 7 computers and an even smaller general classroom that I think is probably used for English, when a teacher is available. We met with two groups that day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon and just as well too that it was split as we struggled to fit even half the group into the room. It was adequate though, for us to hear their stories, which sounded so very similar to many I have heard since my arrival. It struck me that it was probably not very common for anyone to ask these young people about their lives and regardless of any learning that they may or may not have received, even showing an interest in them was a
significantly beneficial act. We heard again of lives set against extreme hardship from the start. If someone is considered ‘below poverty line’ in India, by UK standards it doesn’t even bear thinking about. There is no social security. There are no food banks. There is no formal structure to any kind of social responsibility and if you are foolhardy enough to have been born to such a family then, well, you can assume you deserve all that you get. Or don’t get, in many circumstances. As well as hearing from women with impressive academic qualifications who simply need to get some kind of work, regardless of their abilities, we hear from farming families who cannot afford to stay on their farms all year round and commute to the city to scrape together something of a living outside of the growing season. We hear from youngsters whose father has become unable to work due to illness or injury and leave a family of five or six unfed and unhoused if not for the generosity of an uncle here or there. We hear from bereaved single parent families whose housewife mothers are now eking out a meagre income of 2000 rupees a month (that’s about £26) to feed, clothe and shelter their sons and daughters. We hear from these young people that their modest ambitions for the result of the education that they would simply not be able to afford from most colleges, is not to achieve high earning jobs, or social status, or houses, cars and the trappings of wealth. They simply want to learn, so they can earn enough to lift their loved ones out of poverty. I realise while I jot down their stories, trying not to do so with an air of condescension, trying not to feel as though I am engaging in ‘poverty tourism’, that there isn’t the slightest whiff of self-pity from even one of them. I hear stories of lives that would be considered reason enough to be utterly broken in England, that would be presented as tales from rock bottom, shattered families who would might give their hardships as reason, if not full justification for crime, for mental illness, for dependency on the welfare state. And yet from these perspectives I hear nothing but optimism, the belief that this opportunity, this education that they would not otherwise have access to, is perhaps the greatest gift they could have received, luck beyond all reasonable hope and all the help they need to build their futures stronger and brighter and happier for themselves and those with whom they live. It’s hard not to feel a sense of shame or embarrassment for my own historical excuses or failed motivations as I am cast into the shadows by such radiant self-determinism.
I notice too, that in the west, we seem to have developed this need to appear busy, to be seen as productive at all costs, stress becomes almost a badge of honour. If you’re working so hard, it must be admirable, you must be making a contribution to the world around you, and yet in reality, genuine productivity does not always seem to correspond proportionately to such lifestyles. In India however, I have met people who seem to think nothing whatsoever of getting up at five every morning to carry out household tasks before travelling an hour to college, then on to work and back home in the evening to study more before perhaps going to bed at midnight, on a good day. Six days a week. There is no implied martyrdom. There is no subtle expectation of impressed awe. This is simply how it must be. There is a desired goal, this is the path that leads to it and that is all there is to be said on the matter. Of course, I am coming from an outside perspective and I don’t necessarily pick up on all the finer points of communication or social interaction that might betray less stoical attitudes but still it is impressive and a lesson I can only aspire to learn from.
Our Raipur trip ended with a meal at the station before another, slightly delayed but generally comfortable journey home to Nagpur. The station fare may not have been the highest quality sustenance I have enjoyed in my time here, but I was left with enough food for thought to see me through. I found it genuinely impressive to see how Aryaloka operates in Raipur; it may be a smaller centre and not yet developed to the same degree but already the positive results of the work being carried out there are palpable and those who have benefitted are more than capable of voicing their genuine gratitude for the meaningful opportunities they have been given. That the Raipur centre is run by two ex-students from the residential courses in Nagpur also demonstrates just how far reaching the work of Young Indian Futures continues to be. It’s often easy to forget the scope of ones’ actions, it’s easy to miss taking into account anything that doesn’t happen directly in front of you and as a teacher it is common to end up wondering really just how much difference you’re making. This trip was a wonderful opportunity to realise though, just how far even small acts of positivity can spread, how a single seed of learning can germinate into fruit that not only benefits the student, but also improves the lives of those around them in so many ways.
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Apparently vegan blood tastes good. Oh, the irony.
Though it was a short trip, it was an important one and it will be remembered; if not only for establishing the truth behind the reputedly fierce Chhattisgarh mosquitoes; it may have taken me nearly a fortnight to get this update written but I’ve still got some fading bites to keep the memories of Raipur alive!
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The Way I See it…

1/12/2016

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It’s not uncommon, indeed this will sound familiar to many teachers, to become involved in issues that students are encountering beyond the classroom. This is a key role of the personal tutor, providing personal support and pastoral care suitable to the needs of the individual, helping them make the most of their studies by being aware of their whole being and not just their academic progress. Even a subject teacher who does not have these tutorial responsibilities will need to be aware of the potential for study to be disrupted by matters beyond the usual classroom barriers, especially when it is clear that there is some problem impeding learning. Sometimes, you get an inkling that a student is struggling for a particular reason and the course team had noticed that one of our female students seemed to struggle with seeing the whiteboard in classes. There are often some simple things you can do to subtly remedy these sorts of problems without making a fuss. In this case, make sure she sits near the front, use a good quality whiteboard pen, ensure you write clearly and that your worksheets are easy to read, to name but a few. Eventually though, if this doesn’t seem to help, you have to make gentle enquiries about her well-being. I’m not sure who took charge of that, probably Sheetal for obvious reasons to do with language, but we learned that she was indeed struggling with her eyes.
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The Tariff of Charges; Coming Soon to an NHS Near You?
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Eye Hospital Reception
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A Familiar Sight
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Brave Pushpa Tackles the Sight Test
Pushpa told us that shortly before coming to study here, she had started feeling a burning pain in her eyes and that they were watering a lot. She first noticed it at home, when she was sewing, and her family had arranged for her to see an optician, who had prescribed glasses. Unfortunately, her family had not been able to afford these and so there was nothing further that they could do.

The nature of the work with the residential students at Aryaloka as funded by Young Indian Futures has a history of stretching beyond the classroom into health needs and it was not the first time Shakyajata had arranged a medical appointment for a student, hoping to then fund the required treatment from the charitable donations to the charity. Sheetal was optimistic that an eye appointment and glasses for Pushpa would not cost more than two thousand rupees (that’s about twenty five pounds at the current exchange rate) and so, on Monday morning, I set off on the bus with them both to support as much as I could. I’d spoken with my mum at the weekend and she’d mentioned that she would transfer some cash to my account for Christmas, so while I’m having to be very careful with my pennies during my time not earning here, I felt I could stretch to this cost myself without dipping into the charity pot. It seems, from a western perspective, like a small thing, just a basic need, but something that can make such a big difference to daily quality of life.

I’ll be honest; my reasons for going weren’t purely altruistic. Yes, I did want to support Pushpa and yes, I wanted to help free up time for Shakyajata (she’s had a very busy week conducting interviews and filming a documentary), but I was also very interested to get a nosey into an Indian eye hospital! I’m not so curious about the Indian healthcare system I fancy trying it out for myself, but if the opportunity arises... well, why not? It wasn’t far, just a little further up Dr Ambedkar Road from one of our favourite restaurants and it seemed clean, welcoming and professional, if a little old fashioned. I hadn’t been too sure what to expect but I was pleasantly relieved. Sheetal told me that this would be a far better standard of care centre than the one Pushpa would have attended before coming to Nagpur. We registered and waited in the foyer, Pushpa looking nervous, Sheetal fielding questions about us (and I think mostly about me) from the other patients. I guess they were curious due to my attendance but at least it gave Sheetal (from what I could gather) an opportunity to promote the work of the institute and generally spread awareness of Aryaloka. I had tried to make Pushpa feel better by saying ‘at least you get the morning out of the classroom!’ but I’m not sure that did much to ease her nerves, especially when she was called up to read letters from a familiar looking chart, publically, in the waiting room! She was then handed a slip of paper with some details about her performance and we settled down to wait again. It didn’t seem that we had to wait long. I’d like to think we waited the standard length of time but I’ve been aware of a couple of times when the presence of a white face has facilitated a queue jump, so maybe we got lucky!
The optician was a kind man, with good English who told me he’d visited London twice, as a tourist. I guess an eye doctor must be a pretty well paid job! Perhaps not as well paid as some would like however; he examined Pushpa’s eyes and told us there was nothing wrong with her vision at all, it was actually very good. He said it was common for people to be given very weak and unnecessary prescriptions in order for the practitioner to receive some commission but that in this case, he did not feel poor eyesight was the cause of the pain. His diagnosis was sensitivity to airborne pollutants and instead prescribed eye drops! No need for any expense! The consultation only cost two hundred rupees (I tried to pay but they could not take my card or change my 2000 note, so Sheetal stepped up!) and the drops themselves, which we collected from a chemist on the way home, were less still than that!
A very good outcome indeed! No expensive glasses (and I imagine Pushpa is relieved not to be wearing them!) and no further messing about with fitting frames and lenses or going back to collect them the next day. We were even home in time for lunch! So far so good for Pushpa too; I asked her on Tuesday evening if the drops were helping. “Yes!” she said, her eyes were much better. Hopefully this will help her study, but if nothing else it’s enough that she’s simply more comfortable. So why have I felt the need to share this publically? Partly, it’s interesting, as I said, to see inside the machinations of healthcare systems in other countries but mostly for another far more important reason. I actually feel really grateful. I’m verging towards the proud but I’ll try and curb that one, mostly I’m feeling grateful to have this opportunity to work alongside such compassionate people. People who notice another’s suffering and take time to find and then provide what they need.
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An Initial Result
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A More Thorough Examination
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Sheetal Collects the Eyedrops
As much as we might like to try and do that in England, from within a UK educational system it’s just not possible. There are too many students, money is not free from budgetary restraints for such things and anyway, issues such as physical healthcare are grey areas where one becomes involved in only a distant way for fear of being considered inappropriate or having ones motives scrutinised. How satisfying I find it then, that we can simply cut through all that here. There’s a need. Here’s a solution. Problem solved. A very refreshing perspective indeed; no lenses required to see that!
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Living and Learning

19/11/2016

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It seems a strange characteristic of each blog post I’ve written since attempting to become an English teacher in India, that while they’ve featured plenty of English, there’s been very little use of it to discuss teaching. There’s been so much going on in the periphery that has seemed remarkable or exceptional in some way that the very reason for my being here has faded into the background. I suppose the truth is that while there’s plenty about my time teaching here that is novel to my experience, really, it’s been the one thing that hasn’t seemed so exceptional, the one thing I can rely on to be really pretty predictable; an oasis of relative normality in an ocean of experiential shift and cultural upheaval. In all honesty, it hasn’t even factored as a huge percentage of my time here so far. There are only two English classes a day, apart from weekends, when students have a half day of other classes on Saturday, we have our weekly teachers meeting, and a two hour  Dharma class instead (Think Buddhist Sunday School). One of these daily classes during the week is with the young women in the morning, one with the young men in the afternoon and more often than not, it is simply a case of repeating (with a few tweaks and twiddles) the first class with the second group.
For the first few weeks, it was uncommon to be in the classroom alone and we were doing a lot of team teaching. This phase is starting to recede a bit now as we each make time for lesson preparation or other tasks and errands, but it was a wonderful rediscovery and hopefully won’t stop all together. In my first year in the classroom (academic year 2002/03), classes were actively timetabled to feature team-taught periods and it was a real joy to support each other, share delivery, improvise off unexpected moments of inspiration (or disaster!), almost like actors might and have the ‘so, how did that go!?’ conversation afterwards. A robust course, whatever the subject, should have input from various brains, I think. Not just for a greater breath of subject knowledge, but the different life experiences and personalities of different practitioners is bound to make a difference too. One of the factors that eroded my love of teaching in the UK was this gradual drift from genuine teams delivering substantial content to more than one year where it ended up being just me. Course leader, course tutor, only subject teacher. Just the one brain-full to go round the class.
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Mark teaching
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Some refuge in visual resources!
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Trying to demonstrate that writing on the board is not really so bad!
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Any one know? What am I doing here!?
I’ve always thought that course content is essentially greater than the sum of its parts and felt sorry for any group who only ever had me (or any other individual teacher for that matter) teaching them. It never seemed adequate.

With a good team, if nothing else, you can play to each other’s strengths whilst planning and we’ve certainly been doing plenty of that! Shakyajata is by far the most experienced among us, not just in terms of having taught in India for many years but also in her experiences as a Teacher of English before coming here. She’s been fronting a lot of the planning decisions as well as much of the more technical grammar points in active teaching. Mark is, a little like me, making a shift from his main subject, Science, to English teaching but before leaving the UK he attended an intensive TEFL course which sounded like a very useful, if slightly stressful, experience.
It’s not as if the cessation of my UK teaching career was exactly pleasant either (you can read the details here if you don’t already know them!) and before I arrived, I’d been out of the classroom for over a year, so I’ve not been feeling very confident with planning or delivery. Thankfully, one thing I’ve never lost any confidence in is drawing and I’ve been making the most of the generous preparation time that is comes with living on site to do lots of that! He’s been getting really stuck into his new direction, with lots of impressive ideas and confidence, happily taking on extra classes for non-residential students at the Indora campus in the evenings and even spending a lot of his ‘down’ time helping the young men’s community practise. And then there’s been me! I’ve not shared in Mark’s confidence with the language teaching. My TEFL was conducted entirely online and whilst there were bits I breezed through pertaining to general classroom management, delivery theory and assessment processes, there was also a lot that I sort of managed to limp through off the back of a lot of note taking and hope for the best in the multiple choice tests. There were more in depth written assignments but no actual teaching practice. I tried to arrange some experience by volunteering as an assistant at my local FE college but it never transpired.
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Someone give her a ruler, quick!
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And again, safety in pictures!
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It's not a craft class, honest!
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It's a class introducing concepts of under and over!
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As well as new vocabulary; 'cut!' 'stick!' 'fold!'
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The pretty book covers are just a coincidence!
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And now we can all say 'Please pass me the scissors!'
As a visual learner myself, whilst I recognise the need to present information in a variety of ways, I definitely feel more fired up about lessons with a strong visual content. The students do seem to enjoy it too. There’s something very reassuring about going into a classroom with a couple of hours preparation under your belt. I never was one who liked to ‘wing’ it and I think I was one of the few teachers in my last team who did actually have filed lesson plans for each lesson, much to the apparent disgust of some more ‘natural’ colleagues! Through being able to produce lots of visual content, I’ve felt like I’ve managed to chisel out a tiny nook of comfort zone in an otherwise entirely new suite of (occasionally hostile) experiences. Being aware of my learning style bias has been important, but given the breath of backgrounds in our team, I don’t feel too worried and have thought how much I’d enjoy having three different teaching approaches myself; a visual artist, a singer/English professional and a scientist!

One benefit of team teaching is that even when you are taking a less active role, you are still in a really strong position to observe your colleagues and I’ve been learning a lot, not just about how to teach English but about the subject itself. Did you know that the difference between when you use ‘a’ or ‘an’ is in whether or not the next word starts with a vowel?! It seems so obvious when someone says it (a mouse, an elephant) and I’d have known if someone had got it wrong; but I’d not have been able to pin down why. Ahhh, bring back the relative certainties of red plus blue equals purple any day! Nevertheless, I’m badgering on, nibbling away at new titbits of knowledge as they present themselves and, slowly, I suppose, I must be making some progress! I’ve had some positive feedback from those who have seen my classes anyway, and the students are always smiling.

Aside from mild feelings of inadequacy alongside my more experienced or more confident colleagues, there have been many discoveries I have been enjoying about my unusual teaching renaissance and though there may be things about my Indian experience that leave me wanting (Oh, for the joys of a simple baked potato!), I feel my time in the classroom has been feeding a deep thirst that has been building for some months (or even years). The feeling that I am able to provide some assistance to others, meaningfully and in a way that empowers them to improve their own experiences of life is unparalleled in the sense of satisfaction it brings me. Feeling not just that I am part of a team delivering a much needed service but that the recipients are genuinely appreciative and understand the difference education can make to them is a rare luxury. I have found of my teaching in the UK that an almost resentful belligerence to receiving it is a sad symptom of the way we approach free, equal access to education. Many young people see school and college as a necessary evil to endure, a bit like a reluctant gym member; something one must be seen to be doing but with no real sense of purpose or faith in the outcome.
Perhaps this sense of obligation is at the root of an apparent trend to overemphasise the responsibility of the teacher in the learning process. To my mind (and this works equally when I am the student), a teacher should be a facilitator of appropriate conditions for learning to take place, but it is the student who must necessarily take a leading role to ensure it actually happens. I’m aware that may sound like a teacher trying to back off responsibility but I do not underestimate how much work or skill is involved in cultivating those conditions; simply aware that the seeds from the ripest fruit in the world cannot grow unless they are embedded in fertile compost that is consistently watered and kept in appropriate light and heat.
As well as the aforementioned team teaching, one refreshing difference here is that because we are not following a set qualification, it is entirely up to us to decide how to pace the content. Yes, we must make sure our learners receive the basis in the English language they need, but the freedom from deadlines and minimum unit content has been like taking a giant weight from my shoulders. Shakyajata is wise enough to recognise that, at least in this instance, less is most definitely more and as such we are planning for small amounts of  easily digestible content that stretch enough, but never too much.
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A comic strip to introduce narrative and past simple tense!
A little and often approach to delivering high quality, meaningful information is a very new one compared to my conditioning to churn out lots of content in about half the time really required, which too often results in low quality, sporadic and unreliable learning. Another feature of this temporal spaciousness is that we have plenty of time to revisit, reinforce and repeat. Gone are the days of ‘tick the box and move on to the next thing’ teaching. We move on, when they are ready to. Funnily enough, they do seem to be absorbing the knowledge pretty quickly anyway and we’ve stuck, so far, to our ‘module’ plan.

Perhaps it is partly due to this appropriate pacing, partly due to a genuine sense of progress in themselves and partly due to a generally very grateful attitude to learning in the first place that it has become common for classes to be concluded with a round of applause and happy shouts of ‘Thank you m’am!’ The first time this happened, I had to check they weren’t being sarcastic, but I don’t think that’s really a feature of Indian humour. Is this due to a cultural difference? The fact that these students are so incredibly grateful for any learning opportunities when coming to us form a background where only the high-caste privileged born are able to afford or socially access education? Compared to the UK, where I feel free education to a certain standard has become regarded as such a basic right it’s barely valued. You can lead a horse to water but that’s as far as it goes. Sadly, in the UK, if students aren’t motivated to put in their share of effort on the learning journey it is still more often the teacher who is blamed for not trying hard enough, not differentiating successfully, not being creative, exciting, engaging. I think it must be more complicated than this alone and I know from Shakyajata that it is not always the case that students blindly accept whatever they are given at Aryaloka simply because it’s free and it’s better than the nothing they would otherwise have.
Maybe then, it’s simply that given the freedom to operate as professionals, the time and space and trust to assess what our learners need and then respond to that thoughtfully and meaningfully, we are able to deliver a quality educational experience which facilitates genuine learning and meaningful progression, not just the ability to meet hollow criteria that doesn’t actually demonstrate anything beyond a bureaucratic dependency that never really benefits anyone. Maybe our learners are actually learning. And maybe they know that. Maybe that’s what they are grateful for. Maybe that’s (at least partly) why they invite us to dinner and want to play football with us at the weekend!
I have been here for six weeks now and it’s always about this time in a course where you really begin to see personalities emerge as you get to know a group. The naturally compromised nature of verbal communication to form a rapport might have had something of an impact on this but it’s funny the things you notice. Still, despite language barriers, personalities shine through. Hidden depths are revealed, life stories are told and I find myself become increasingly fond of every little idiosyncrasy I encounter. It’s always hard to say good bye to a tutor group you’ve really enjoyed teaching and though I don’t think for a moment that we’ll be able to discuss our deepest feelings in any detail by the time the date of my departure arrives, I somehow already know that these groups are not going to be among the easiest to have to say good bye to.

The experience of waking up at the weekend and realising I’m actually a little sorry to not be in the classroom is something I’ve not felt for a long, long time and it’s good that this is happening despite being in very new territory with my teaching. It seems like the good old days of teaching visual language may not be too far away anyway.
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The girls watch us eat their lovingly prepared dinner!
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A Sunday kick-about!
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Preparing the stumps!
I have been asked to teach Photoshop (what music to my ears!) and hope to start doing so next month. We’ve still got a bit of negotiating to do but I’ve started planning and am looking forward to begin back on familiar ground. It’s going to be a challenge, no interactive whiteboards here to demonstrate on, no Virtual Learning Environment to upload materials and content to, not much in the way of student access to the internet during classes either; but I’ll get there. My first ever taught lesson ended up being painting with only red paint and no brushes or paper. We got through and learned a lot about achieving texture, on cardboard, with various alternative tools. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and that resourcefulness is something that India is very good at teaching. It may end up being a bit unconventional but I don’t think I’ve ever been described as ‘conventional’ anyway. That’s probably just as well!
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Going Forth...

30/9/2016

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Visa
It often feels that new beginnings are inextricably tangled with old ends and this imminent journey is by no means any exception to that rule. I am where I am now, writing this first blog of a new adventure only because I have shut down and moved away from other phases in my life, which, in their time, were their own new beginnings.

But we build on our experiences, learn from our mistakes and gain confidence from our successes. My ‘old ending’ has a fair share of each of these, a goodly mulch of experiential compost in which to germinate new seeds of promise.

About a year ago, in September 2015, I decided to leave a 12 year career in teaching. You can read in far more detail about the reasons for this in my blog post of the time, initially penned for Education Support Partnership to share on World Mental Health Day. Titled ‘Why I’m Leaving Teaching’, it explains exactly that, but you can guess from the rest of that sentence, the crux of why I left. I then moved 200 miles from where I had been settled for 8 years and started a ‘new life’. In truth, this was less of a new beginning than a holding pattern while I did a lot of very important thinking, a lot of decision making and a lot of not much else. A much needed rest for a battered system. I had a few demons to chat with. I’ve learned recently that fighting them achieves nothing. It’s far better to make peace with them and get them and their energies on your side.

During this time, I deepened and consolidated my burgeoning relationship with a newfound spirituality and came to identify as a practising Buddhist. It didn’t seem coincidental that the only thing my mind kept returning to with any enthusiasm as a possible new direction in life was a Buddhist social project that I had first heard about at a talk only a short time after I decided to hand in my notice. This talk, on Dr Ambedkar day in October 2015 was delivered by Shakyajata, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order who has been working with oppressed young people in India for many years. Her description the work of the small charity she runs, Young Indian Futures, and their work at Aryaloka Computer Education Centre in Nagpur, offering subsidised education to some of India’s poorest and most marginalised young people, moved me deeply. Her words and the affectionate enthusiasm with which she spoke of the students, reminded me of the true purpose of teaching; a way of improving lives, not a means of paying the rent. Time and again I found myself thinking of this talk and the work being done there, so, in April, I contacted her and we began a lengthy process of getting to know each other, deciding that I would travel with her to Nagpur and together preparing for me to teach English there on a voluntary basis. That is almost as much as I can say in this update about the practical side of it all really! Just a little background to set the stage for what is to come. The events that unfold over the next few months will be of as much surprise to me as to anyone following my updates; I really do not know what to expect. But, where once this would have caused me a good deal of worry, instead I find the open expansiveness of that unknown really very liberating. Anything, could indeed happen, but I’ve no reason to suppose it won’t be entirely wonderful.

During my year of ‘inactivity’ my website has been left largely untouched but as part of preparing to leave the UK, I’ve recently given it a spring clean, something of an overhaul. In so doing I’ve written a few blog posts to update the other strands of my activities, namely arts and running. In these, I’ve had a lot of space for reflection, quite painful reflection at times and have been open about my realisation that one thing I’ve been working through this year is the aftermath of an exercise addiction. Of course, my study of the Buddhist teachings has given me a great deal of support and strength with this, but one thing I have particularly benefited from is a new perspective on how I choose to invest my energy. For a good couple of years, I prioritised running and poured most of my passion for life into it as a source of escape and distraction. This left little of me remaining for anything else. It was part of a broader illness but still did nothing to help me recover. I felt tired. I had no enthusiasm. I had no purpose. The running as an activity was an expression of my anxiety and nervous agitation but even then, I knew I wasn’t achieving anything.

Though there has been much to organise in recent weeks, from visa to vaccines, flights to insurance, lesson planning and packing to domestic duties and farewells, and although I have been perhaps busier than for some months, I feel genuinely refreshed. I feel energised and ready to not just take on but to fully engage with whatever challenges lie ahead. Always, at the heart of this, I aim to maintain an awareness of the finite nature of this energy and to be as wisely discriminating as possible in how I utilise it. My aim, my purpose, is to help others achieve their potential, to reduce suffering, to spread a little love and lightness and laughter. If I can focus my dynamism like a shining beam of light to this purpose instead of squandering it on empty pastimes,  then I have no doubt that a pleasantly coincidental side effect will be my own continued flourishing and development. Over the last few years I have been on a very difficult journey. At times, I wasn’t at all sure it was one I’d get to the end of. There were days when, to misquote a misquote, the light at the end of the tunnel really did seem to be no more than the headlights of an hastily hurtling train. So it’s been tough, but sometimes the only way out is through and now I feel I have the wind on my face again, birdsong in my ears and soft grass beneath my feet. Perhaps most importantly, I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t made that challenging voyage through darkness and apparent disaster. A kind of death. A kind of rebirth. I’m here, I’m alive and I’m ready. And I just can’t wait to get on that ‘plane!

I was recently very fortunate to be invited to volunteer on the team that ran a weekend for beginners at Vajrasana, a beautiful new Triratna retreat centre in Suffolk. As part of this I was invited to speak in a talk titled ‘Why I am a Buddhist’ (you can read or listen to that talk). As well as the much needed boost to my confidence that I found this gave me (I’ve been not been in a classroom for over a year after all and am out of practice with public speaking!) it also gave me the privilege of standing alongside some very strong co speakers and the humbling opportunity to chat with many remarkable individuals afterwards.
In one such ‘post speech’ conversation that particularly touched me, I was advised to listen to ‘This is the Sea’ by The Waterboys, a band I happen to have been fond of for some time. It seems so beautifully poetic, in the context of this song, that I have spent my months of recuperation living on the Thames Estuary and frequently walking (or running!) past the Crow Stone; the point at which the river becomes the sea. This is to me a perfect analogy of the transition I am in the final stages of making and in the words of The Waterboys:
‘Once you were tethered.
Well, now you are free
That was the river
This is the sea!’


Twelve days and counting... A new beginning awaits!
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    ‘Magga’ is the Pali word for ‘path’.  In Buddhism, this word is often linked to the Ariya Magga, or Noble Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths, which is the path to the cessation of suffering.
    ‘Mission Maggamouse’ is the latest catalogue of the adventures of Glittermouse; a visual artist and educator. It has been initiated specifically to record and share her experiences at Aryaloka Computer Education Centre, a Buddhist social project in Nagpur, offering subsidised education to some of India’s poorest and most excluded young people. As a recent Dhammamitra (mitra who has asked for of ordination) of the Triratna Buddhist Order, this activity is an important step in integrating her teaching experience with her spiritual aspirations. You can read more about Glittermouse on the ‘home’ page of this site.

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