29 July: Loreto School (Rainbow School), and American Center at Consulate

29 July: Loreto School

Theresa Mendes, social worker at Loreto School in Kolkata.

1264 students, 750 do not pay fees (just minimal amount "to preserve dignity"). 2500 rupees per month

640-650 students, visit students at home, interact with benefactors to get funds. Provide link to 

write up case studies for teachers, principals with goal to keep child in classroom rather than out of class.

Not just important that child be in school if burdened with terrible problems bc teachers cannot reach kids in crisis even if child is right in front of them. Must be able to reach kids individually. This approach has helped reduce dropout rate significantly.

Give meal in afternoon, started labor exchange with parents (come in, tell skills they have, school places them within context of school to help fulfill school community needs, say with tailoring, masonry, etc.)

Almost 60% of students do not speak English at home. But families choose to send their daughters here bc it's a "passport to a job". They insist students should reach class X or XII. School seeks sponsorship to help graduates continue studies into college where kids want.

Programs:

1. urban deprived child "barefoot teaching program"
2. Poona: for children/families who just migrated from Calcutta, live in shanties
3. for Orissa, fisherfolk children, very low caste
4. ChildLine: help line for children in distress, started in Mumbai, came to Kolkata about 15 years ago
5. Rainbow program: for street kids, any age, give them some form of literacy and numeracy. Get them ready and mainstream them (for younger ones, easy to mainstream them here; for older ones, send them to vernacular schools but continue to support them.) for highest risk students Rainbow homes where kids live there 24/7 150 there now. Several sites around the city at Loreto locations. 

This has Rainbow School embedded in it.

Interacting with 9th and 2nd grade students, taking pictures, letting them type their names on the Chromebook. Surprised at the English language facility of the 9th standard students, really good. The 2nd standard kids are largely from the nearby red light district, stigmatized in their neighborhoods, but not here (or so we're told by administrators). The older kids are reviewing Bengali lessons with tattered storybooks conveying rhymes and regional information. For example, I saw a story about a horse and elephant dancing at a wedding celebration (2nd standard) and an explanation of the tea-gathering techniques of Darjeeling (5th standard). Bengali script is lovely, but I think I still prefer the swoopy lines of Tamil, just to look at, at least.

One of the directors is describing some of the school's success stories to us. Some of the girls have left here to become lawyers, other professions. I continue to attract attention from students as I stand here and type. It's adorable. The kids want games and video. Sorry to disappoint. And they are not shy about touching the keyboard. I've had to re-enter the password 3 times so far in 20 minutes. "Auntie," they call, and swing the keyboard back around to me. Moving on...

outreach to 6 village schools, informal on Saturdays, under the trees. And at truck stops (did I hear that right?) to teach basic literacy and numeracy for young boys who've dropped out of school. For past 27 years. 

Teacher Drew Potts has been working here for 5 weeks. I asked him candidly about the rote memorization versus application and individual agency. I've been really impressed with what I've seen here. He says the folks here work on looping through content each year with increasing depth. End of year 10, students must sit for exams, if they don't pass they can't progress. And they need to own the answers perfectly, hence memorization is key here. Having said that, he's been impressed with how much students learn and can process. He thinks American students/teachers could work on content depth. We emphasize the other macro skills. I agree with him.

I'm so impressed with the six girls (heads of house here) who are fielding our questions about their schools here. House divisions end for 11th and 12th standards. 

C: what do you love about your school?

A: that it teaches us to be independent. That we work with deprived students. 

A: we are not all from the same financial backgrounds, our school promotes equality. This is really special, because we all come from different social and financial backgrounds, but this does not affect our friendships here. This is one of the most special and important elements of our school.

Mary: what do you do outside of school?

A: dance, sing, read, etc.

Drew cites different understanding of homework. Here are three questions to think about. Or look at these questions in your text and write your answers in your copybook. He says most of the nitty-gritty work is done in class, largely due to kids' busy home lives or commuting lives. 

11th standard student: 

Main differences between 11th/12th std. and lower grades is the focus and pressure: "The pressure is so huge that we don't do outreach in villages." They have competitions with schools in the area, drama, sports, Drew says it's like an academic decathlon with about 20 different schools. 

Lots of inquiry-based science labs.

Really impressive young ladies, smart and composed and quick on their feet. Thoughtful individuals...it might be tempting to say they're coached or mechanical, but that's not the case as far as I can see.

The school is also running several other important outreach programs and the staff highlighted two for us: the brick field schools (for kids whose families work in villages across the greater Calcutta region making bricks from earth, drying them in the sun). I've seen TV features on this type of work before, it's arduous. Children as young as one work there, but most are 5-7 and up. The families migrate with the work, so instead of the kids coming to the school in its central location, the school now employs teachers who go to the brick fields. We saw a Powerpoint on it that was informative and compelling. They were very straightforward about their challenges, namely how to talk to families about child labor laws (children under 14 cannot work, according to national law). How to get/retain good teachers, how to fund the schools, etc. Right now they are entirely funded by donors from the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. 

The staff also described a project about women's empowerment through work and handicraft skills. We bought some of their wares--at US prices, which was jarring--and it feels good to support the cause. When the women make money, they can pay for their kids to attend school. And that seems to be what most families want for their kids. There is a recognition that education is a primary factor lifting people out of poverty.

Driving through the streets here, staring out the window, I'm aware that I can only understand the surface of what I see. The side streets are small, narrow, wet with the morning's rain. Sanjeev says Calcutta has the cheapest public transport in all of India. It's great for the traveler, but it's one reason the buses look so rundown, in spite of the lively and original paint jobs that make them look so festive. The metro here costs about 4 rupees for a trip that in Delhi would cost 15, according to Sanjeev. And apparently I need to take a tram trip while I'm here. They may not long survive in modern (?) Kolkata, so I should aim for this adventure in the next 2 days.

We're just come down metal pipe lane, where men on the sidewalk are working in pairs, one squatting on his haunches holding the pipe and cutting agent in place , the other swinging a maul to cut the pipe at the target spot. My vocabulary for these types of things is not very extensive--this is like one or two aisles at Lowe's, just on the street. Guys are bathing, others washing and wringing their shirts out at open taps.  And here are four guys playing cars in the back of a blue van, door slid wide open for a breeze, legs tucked under, wherever there's room, cards flying, smiles and jokes making it look like a friendly scene indeed. My colleagues in front of me are talking about the severity and complexity of problems they face in their work as teachers and administrators around the country. We do so much more than teach, and that's something we share with our Indian colleagues. We are all responsible for so much. 

And there's a guy cleaning his teeth with a small brown stick, using it just like a toothbrush (back and forth, back and forth). Just as I clicked on my camera, he looked up. Rats. A moment too slow.

Did I mention that Kolkata is one of the last places where you see rickshaws being pulled by men, rather than by machines? It looks like so much labor for so little money, but I have no idea how it feels or what they really earn. I saw an leather (vinyl?) upholstered one yesterday, and all I could think about was how it must weather--but it looked unmarred by mold. How is that possible here where the air is dense with moisture? 

American Center; US Consulate General at Kolkata

Art: wow, this traditional art is amazing. I bought a few SariSwathi (sp?) and a Ganesh t-shirt--yay!

red: saffron

orange: crushed bricks

yellow: turmeric

green: leaf (akin to spinach...hinche in Bengali)

dark brown: soil of this area from ponds

blue: aparajita...someone who is undaunted  (small flower)

Dr. Sudeshna Banerjee: just back from Fulbright at Brown Univ. PhD from Univ. of London School of Far East and African Studies; urban culture specialist including (among a long list) the cultural importance of sport; and people's experience of Partition

Theme of religious pluralism, particularly in Bengal...

• Important to think of city as colonial one, used to be three villages. North and south of city (deltide areas) were heavily forested. Prior to that, there was a world of religious differences out there. Regular people in pre-colonial period practiced some Islam (had come in 13th c.) but there had been Buddhism, Brahminism, others. Role of rivers were important in culture at this time. Makes it tough to draw boundaries, for example, because of changing nature/shape of rivers. Where rivers constantly change course. Syncretism was somehow endemic to the situation, particularly for the lower orders. Lower classes constantly took bits and pieces of other belief systems, upper classes did not do this. Deltide Bengal has been inhabited from time immemorial, btw, with own deities, animism, etc. So the majority people reckoned with waves of other belief systems as invaders came and went. 

• Ultimately, within 200 years of Islam arriving in Bengal, interesting syncretic forms appeared in Bengal. So Prophet Mohammad became a boatman in popular culture (no surprise there). Similarities to Krishna fording a river, Rhada and her friends trying to take a boat ride, Krishna trying to have fun with them...using boatman iconography. Takes people "the other side" in a friendly manner, not with judgement. Concept of gaaji, person who makes war on infidels and inner, baser self, gets transformed a bit here. No evidence that they used forcible conversions, rather they helped save people from impending death. That's how they became inculcated into "modern" culture. Gaajis trying to preach, but making space for changes. 

• This is why there are tigers (Dokken Rai, BoneBibi) in the pantheon of gods, because of the Sundurbans. 

• City of Calcutta is being grafted in 19th century, especially as it was not meant to be "urbanity" of this scale, happened only because of English business interests. The geography, climate, etc. were not well suited to this (professor reminds us that short session inclines her talk toward simplification, and she apologizes for skips in history and analysis). 

• Portuguese had been here first (for Europeans) but came as pirates, slave traders, not as longer-term businessmen. Armenians, Chinese, Jews and Parsis came, other groups contributed to its melting pot nature in 18th century. Modern Chinatown shows this mix still: Buddhism, Confucianism, Christian. 

• Racism was one result of some mixing (she reminds us she's jumping around)

• More important, however, was proclamation in 1858 by Queen Victoria that British would rule India. This had profound impact on this area. It had been dominated by fisherfolk, farmers, now clerical workers (Bengali Hindu middle class) working for regime. They had no place in production, subsisted on educational capital. A thriving group of educated employed, crucial in continuity of pre-existing tapestry of syncretism, but many more became Sanksritized , Brahminical Hindus. This happened a LOT in last half, quarter of 19th century. Notions of nationhood imbibed by educated middle class in Bengal seeped out from here. More elaborate administrative network, capital of British Indian empires whole, census-making came into being (from here). Built on English system of classification, calculating figures to "know" population. The reading public of Bengal (the colonial middle class) were reading the census, not just imagining the nation vis-a-vis the colonizer, but a reimagining of the country in an indigenous context. 

• Rapid urbanization is important here too, especially as frustrations associated with this process found expression sometimes in communal violence. 

Dr. Tirtha Prasad Muhkopadhyay, prof. at Univ. of Kolkata, specialist in aesthetics, art, is a poet, interested in emergence of creative faculties of primitive man.

Asked to speak about religiouis reform movements 100-200 years, focus on Bengal. 

Religoius movements in Bengal and how they culminate in the modern era: (notes are his words and my paraphrasing...too dense, could not capture it all)

• early 19th century, marked by events which have "very distinctive prognostications for religious ferment" for next 200 years, and cross- & under-currents
• First significant departure from orthodox Hinduism, an event whose ripples continue to be felt today, institutions of justice, law, and state, morality, depth of puritanical consciousness. Would it be possible to illustrate the design of synchretism with event from history? Can we construct it in the form of a report? William Kerry's evangelical mission, coming to India, the Particular Baptist Missionary Society for the Cultivation of the Heathen, rational trinitarianism. Sets scene for complete rethinking of Vedic tradition. Family came in 1793, settled 20 miles north of here. Wanted to convert natives Indians by translating Bible into Bengali and other Indian vernaculars. Creates impetus for total intellectual revolution on Indian soil, but also sets stage for serious discourse among Hindus. This discourse is in consonance with discourse in Christianity. Got tight with Rajah Roy, whose robust ideological move for a rational, monotheistic version of Hinduism. We think of Hinduism as monotheistic today, and that pathway starts with Roy (longer name, begins with Ramohan). Rational trinitarianism: belief in (Protestant version of) trinity, reflecting 400 years of Western European Protestantism. Ramohan discarded trinitarianism as a bowdlerized polytheism. Went instead for unitarianism. This is an important event. Raja Ramohan Roy fit this thinking in with Vedic monotheism, very radical at that time, rational and common sense. Very significant because it was a reform movement in which reformers tried to reject any kind of complex, inhuman rituals associated with religious practice. This attitude was evident in Roy's writing (The Precepts of Jesus), which show Jesus as human who led exemplary life. Compares Ramohan Roy's (rhetorical, polemic) technique to that of Thomas Paine. 

• This was a congregational version of Hinduism. Adoration of the one invisible supreme being is key individual pursuit. Academic Hinduism considers only unmediated reason as gateway to divine experience, as with conduct of life, all ethical and legal activity. Product in part of European nationalism, Hindu reformers were elitist, educated in Europe, not of mainstream. Rejection of Islamic sharia and Hindu caste system. DeRosio, Adam, David Hare...these and other reformers went against prejudices, anticipating Victorian scientific rigor (which replaced rationalism).

• Rationalism tends to get political, aims to claim power for underprivileged. Leads toward disowning of structure of Hinduism, you can see this in rewriting of India's 1950 constitution, a rational synchretic document. Its writer Ambedkha, was an untouchable who'd been educated in Ivy League US and London School of Economics. End of life became a Buddhist. 

• India, not like US/Europe/China, is a free society, less under pressures of economic, more about celebration, inclusion, and ...protects minority religious communities. So Muslims, even Sufis, fit in and are protected. 

Manipuri Dance: an integral part of culture of this NE state, for all religious and many other occasions. . Velasya (feminine aspect) is one of the two major styles of Manipuri dance; other is masculine

Dances:

1. Descriptions of the beauty of Radha (Lord Krishna's beloved)
2. Kanduk kehl...boy + game: Krishna's & Balram's teams play ball. Done with two pairs of dancers.
3. Lord Krishna loves butter. This dance tells the story of young Lord Krishna eating all the butter in the house, even the last pot hanging from the ceiling. She comes home and he runs away. This dance is based on the masculine aspect of Manipuri dance style. 

On way home, went across Hooghly (sp?) bridge, the second longest span in Asia, I hear. But that seems hard to believe, esp given some of the newer bridges built in the past decade in Japan and China. It was beautiful lit up at night. Then we walked a bit on a stretch of "riverwalk", seeing guys dressed in orange, (pilgrims of a sort, not the sanitation crew as we'd guessed), clandestine couples, fishermen in low wide boats (who turned out not be fishermen at all, but couples seeking a little privacy...wonder how that whole operation works). We also saw two young teens, maybe 10 or 11 years old, huffing some kind of substance out of chips bags. And we were approached by a eunuch (I didn't think they travelled solo) called hijra. Sanjeev and I were the first to notice, he was concerned, as he had no small bills. I'd seen a few shows about these folks and I know that it's best to keep them mollified. So I fished out a 10 rupee note and handed it over, got a disappointed look, a half-hearted blessing (a casual wave of the hand in the direction of my brow), then she turned on her heel and walked away. I tried not to make too much eye contact, but I saw she had exquisite make-up. We beat a path in the opposite direction before she gathered a crew to harangue us for more funds. Sanjeev says it's bad luck not to give them money, yes, and a big hairy pain in the buns. They create quite a scene, from what I've gathered, especially at weddings. Sometimes it's essential to keep a low profile as a Westerner here.

We also went by the Victoria Monument, lit up magnificently in the hazy night. It's the kind of building every world-class city has, both imposing (even at a distance) and inviting. Great lions at the front gate too. It's right by the lovely Birla Planetarium and across from Vicotira Park, where the lit and colored fountains were synched to hit trance-y music last night. Loved it. We ran, Frogger-like, across a traffic circle to take in the view. It was the best part of the evening, until my great google-chat conversation with Liv, Ruby and Chris when we returned. We got silly with the effects--what a bunch of cheeseballs. So happy to talk to them!