This one well still has water - maybe so that the children can swim. For 6 years all wells were dry, and now this year when this well filled up, every village child has learnt swimming ! My daughter and her batch learnt at this well 6 years ago when it had had water .
All the adults teach all the children. All the children belong to all the adults in a village.
Dried drumstick or sisal stems are slashed together and used as a float when children initially learn to swim. This float is tied to their waist as they get into water.
This year in keeping with modern times, plastic water cans are alternateively used as floats !
Samadhi baavi - the largest well in the panchayat at the base of the irrigation tank, Malleshwaram cheruvu. Every summer, before waterlessness and droughts set in, children from all hamlets would make a beeline to here in the afternoons, carrying their floats and a towel.
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