society
May 5, 2024

My dad said, "If you go to school, I'll hack your feet off!"

A unique school

At two o'clock in the afternoon, when the midday sun no longer burns so mercilessly on this dry land in western India, the oldest women of Phangane come together. Wrapped in pink saris, they gather in the garden behind the penultimate house of their village in a thatched bamboo shed and sit cross-legged on the floor.

The leader in the first row addresses her words to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning and knowledge. Although she can not hear well anymore, her voice is still penetrating. After she has spoken the first line, the others agree.

So the day begins in the "Aajibaichi Shala", which means on Marathi "home of beloved grandmothers". The name stands in artfully curved letters on the wall of this unique school.

The minimum age for school enrollment is 60

Twenty-seven women learn reading, writing and arithmetic here. Many of them do not know their true age but feel they look like 65. In any case, they are very unanimous that none of them is less than 60 years old: 60 is the minimum age required for enrollment.

Phangane is located approximately 100 kilometers north of Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra. Even here, Mumbai's smog is enough. A gray sky hangs over the landscape, the few trees have thrown off the leaves. The only benefit of the drought: There are no mosquitoes.

The lives of the 70 families of Phangane are laborious. The sun has baked the earth for months rock hard. Only in the monsoon season, about four months a year, can they grow rice, beans, peanuts and lentils. Most of the time, they rely on the government's emergency rations, which distribute wheat, sugar and oil to millions of needy families in the country each month.

The elders learn from the boys

Tutoring: Many of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren help the grandmothers with the reading and writing exercises

Mandalas, images of color pigments, decorate the floor in front of the front doors, which are always open. So when walking through the village offer unusual insights: At noon, when the children are back from elementary school, sit the old women with their grandchildren on the floor. Together, they bend over exercise books. The special feature: The elderly learn from and with the boys.

Even the single Gangubhai Baduji Kedar does not have to learn alone. The neighbor children like to come by her. "In the beginning, the children smiled at us," says the 65-year-old. "Now they are proud that we go to school for old women." Her first name Gangubhai means "beautiful". Copper spiral rings adorn her toes. Her face is marked by laugh lines and deep furrows. Their cracked heels are to be seen that their feet have traveled hundreds of miles.

"My father threatened to cut my feet off when I go to school again"

First graders: Those who go to school in the "House of Beloved Grandmothers" are 60 and older

"Even as children, we had girls working in the field," says Gangubhai. Their story is typical of many women in India: "Our father said he did not have enough money to send all the children to school, so only my two brothers left while my three sisters and I stayed home and worked. " But not only for lack of money, the girls were denied education. Female offspring are considered inferior in some families in India to this day, most parents want boys.

"One time I followed my brother to school, I just sat down in the classroom with so many school children," Gangubhai says. "When I got home, my dad yelled at me, threatening that he would cut my feet off me if I dare to go to school again." The threat worked. Gangubhai concentrated from now on entirely on the house and field work. Like her sisters and many other women from Phangane, she was already married as a teenager.

They did not enter school until March 8, 2016, International Women's Day, where the "Grandma School" of Phangane was inaugurated with a brass band and banquet. Behind the unique facility is a wealthy Mumbai contractor, who has already donated more than 30 elementary schools in the region. His mission is to carry education to the villages.

And because the men from Phangane had attended school for at least a few years, the women agreed:

Now it's our turn!

Everyone was immediately impressed by the idea, they wanted to catch up on what they had missed in their youth. But they also had to ensure that their work was redistributed because their job was to carry water in buckets from the river to the village and collect firewood in the surrounding woods.The contractor also helped with water pumps and a reforestation project to improve the quality of life in Phangane, giving women the time to study under the bamboo roof for two hours a day.

The project is based on the idea that few people need change. This notion is deeply rooted in Indian cultural history. At the end of the 19th century, Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, said: "Give me 100 faithful young men and I will make India a great nation." Faith equated Vivekananda with belief in one's own abilities. In the 21st century, not only young men, but also the old women of Phangane can pass on this self-confidence? and become a role model for the parents and children in the village: Seeing how much the grandmothers like to learn can motivate everyone.

The school uniform is a taboo break

It's time to put on the school uniform. The gold-embroidered pink saris are a deliberate taboo, because traditionally widows like Gangubhai, whose husband died 20 years ago, wear white clothes? white is the color of mourning.

Once in class, Gangubhai sits down in the back row, where she can better chat and joke with her friends. The women get slate from their red satchels. The children, who have accompanied their grandmothers and grandmothers, intone in the chorus: "A, B, C ...", repeat the ancients.

Gangubhai's next door neighbor also came with her granddaughter. Patiently, the girl watches as her grandma draws letter after letter on her board. When she stops because she can not write a word, the granddaughter quickly takes over. The old woman happily picks up the board, announces herself and proudly shows her dictation to the teacher.

The school has turned the hierarchies upside down

Teacher Shital Prakash More, 29, did not attend school long. Now she wants to continue her education.

Shital Prakash More is not even half her old age, just 29 years old. And she has only a simple education, comparable to a secondary school diploma. But Shital teaches the elderly as skillfully as if she had not done anything else during her life. She says that still a quarter of all women in the state of Maharashtra can not read and write. For men, the rate is much lower, because about 90 percent have attended a school.

Until a year ago, Shital Prakash was a More Housewife and stayed at home as the mother of two sons. But when the idea was born to start a school for senior women in Phangane, she was thrilled with the idea of sharing her knowledge.

Her mother-in-law also includes her mother-in-law. "At first, it was strange to teach women who are much older and more experienced," she says. "But they immediately accepted me as their teacher." Traditionally, in the village, the ancients have the say, but the school has turned the hierarchy on its head. This does not bother me. "My students are inquisitive, I never have to scold them," says Shital. She teaches calm and slow. Soon she wants to go back to school for a higher degree.

For the students, it's not about certificates or degrees

Rethinking: The fact that the grandmothers form changes the families

"The fact that we go to school at our age gives us dignity," says Gangubhai. As an illiterate, she was often ashamed that she could only leave a thumbprint if her signature was needed. Meanwhile, all students can spell their names themselves. Even the 90-year-old Sitabhai Bandu Dehsmuk, village elder, who is supported by her grandchildren.

Recently, one of the students died. "But not as illiterate," says Gangubhai. "I'll probably never bring it to a book myself," she says. "But I'll take some written words to the next world."

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