A village. Learning. Teaching

Long long ago we moved to the village. 1995, when many of my FB friends were in junior school, or still not born.

I had wanted to start a village school. Or so I thought. I read up Nai Talim. And other writings.

We moved to a village. A beautiful village. Set up home.

Years passed. And melted into decades. But that school never happened.

I was too busy learning. To light a fire, to cook on firewood. To repair cracks in the walls on our mud house. To layer the winnows with goat dung. To layer our floor with cowdung. To make the most enchanting muggus, rangolis. To treat with local herbs. Of the power of mantrams.

The village people knew every sustainable skill that mattered. Weaving coconut fronds, making mud pots, farming without chemicals, treating with local herbs and matrams.

I had no such skill to share. I could only teach them unsustainable skills. Some of these I did teach in the evenings, sometimes against my better judgement. Such as English.

Mostly the village people taught, I learnt.

This teaching by them was done in simplicity. Not with the pomp and show of setting up schools, as we urbans do when we presume to teach the rural india.

And that learning alone continues ... to date.