Amir and I paused for second, thinking about my Amma and all the things she could do to me. Then Amir said, “Well, now that you’re not fighting, maybe your Amma will make the school development plan happen too.”
I hope he’s right, Mrs. Naidu. Because lately it feels like every time we solve a problem, twice as many take its place.
I better start my social studies homework now, Mrs. Naidu. I think Amma is getting suspicious, and even with all its problems, I like Bangalore a lot better than Bihar.
All the best,
Sarojini
August 24, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
Mrs. Naidu, today proved that I should be a lawyer and not a detective.
There was a case to solve today, and I missed all the clues.
If this were detective story, it would be called the Mystery of the Missing Deepti.
Here are the clues I missed:
Deepti was not at the construction site today. Neither was her Appa.
But when I got to school, I saw Abhi at the anganwadi.
Even though Abhi was there, Deepti did not come to school until just before lunch.
When she came to school, she sat across the room and didn’t even look at me.
At lunch, she left again, and didn’t come back until the middle of the afternoon.
When she came back, the tips of her fingers were bright blue.
She still didn’t sit next to me or look at me.
Before the end of the day, she left one more time, and didn’t come back.
As you can see, Mrs. Naidu, there were a lot of clues. But instead of examining the evidence and drawing conclusions, I was just confused.
I solved the mystery at the same time as everybody else: at the end of the day, when school was over, and we all rushed across the compound and towards the gate to go home or to buy candy or to run around the streets until our parents called us for dinner.
But when we got to the compound wall, we all stopped. Because we all saw the most important clue at the same time:
People were fixing the compound wall.
Can you guess who was fixing it, Mrs. Naidu?
(Since you are a genius, I bet you can.)
It was Deepti and her people.
And by her people, I mean the construction people.
They were picking up garbage and putting it in bags and then taking it to the trash area by the construction site.
They were sweeping the stones where the garbage was cleared.
They were laying bricks on the jagged, broken parts of the wall until it looked straight and smooth.
They were even painting the wall.
Deepti was helping, adding layers of blue paint with a thick, new paintbrush.
Which explains why her fingers were blue.
(You see what I mean about my detective skills?)
“How did you do this?” I asked her.
“I did what Amir said,” she said. “I talked to my people.”
Deepti’s Appa came over then. Beaming, he asked, “What do you think, Sarojini?”
I looked at the fresh bricks and the gleaming paint and the swept stones. I smelled the air that no longer seemed rotten. “It’s beautiful.”
And it was, Mrs. Naidu. It really was.
All the bricks were laid perfectly. The wall was only partly painted, but the bright blue made it look like a piece of the afternoon sky.
“Where did you get the bricks and paint and everything?”
“A few days ago we ran out of supplies and some of the men had to go to a store and get some,” Deepti said. “Appa and I went over there to talk to the man who owns it. Turns out he went to Ambedkar School and said he could donate. He doesn’t have a big store or anything, and it’s not like he’s rich enough to give a lot, but he gave what he could.”
Just then Amir pulled up on his bike. He looked at me, and he looked at Deepti, and he looked at the students and the construction workers, and he looked at the soil underneath where the garbage used to be. Without even asking what was going on, he said, “We have extra paint at my house. And I’ll bring some clippings from Amma’s terrace garden.”
Then he biked away.
That’s the thing about Amir. He just understands.
And he always wants to help.
That’s when I looked around and noticed that Amir wasn’t the only one who wanted to help. My classmates weren’t standing and watching, like I was.
They were picking up garbage and painting the wall and passing bricks and mixing sand and water to make mortar.
“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for missing work, Uncle?” I asked Deepti’s Appa.
“We spoke to the foreman yesterday,” he said. “He wasn’t happy, but he said he wouldn’t fire us. We’re going to lose a day’s wages, that’s all.”
“Isn’t that a lot?” I asked him.
“Deepti’s Amma is working,” Deepti’s Appa said. “We’ll manage on that. Anyway, this is more important than a few rotis, isn’t it?”
Deepti smiled then, but I guess she was embarrassed, because she turned back to the wall and started painting faster.
“You should be proud, Sarojini,” he went on. “You are the reason that this is happening. My daughter brought us here today, but you are the one who started it all.”
That’s when I stopped to check what I was feeling.
I realized that I wasn’t proud.
I was angry.
Really angry.
Why should Deepti’s Appa and all the other workers have to miss a whole day of wages for something the government should be doing for free?
Why should kids who are supposed to be doing their homework spend their afternoon picking up garbage?
And why should shopkeepers from the neighbourhood – people who may have a little more than me or Deepti, but still don’t very have much – give up supplies and materials that they could have sold to make money to feed their families?
“Excuse me, Uncle,” I said. “There’s something I have to do.”
I went back to Annie Miss’s classroom then, Mrs. Naidu. She was pretty much the only teacher who was still at school. First I told her what was happening outside, and then I asked if I could use her phone. She wanted to know who I was calling, but when I told her, her eyes got that misty-just-and-beautiful-world-look. She handed me the phone, and told me not to worry about using minutes. She said that equity is worth more than a few extra rupees on her phone bill.
(I don’t know what that means, Mrs. Naidu, but it was nice of her.)
Then she went down to the compound wall to see if she could help.
The first call I made was to Rohini Madam Miss Reporter. She picked up after just one ring. When she answered, I said, “Hello, this is Sarojini from Ambedkar School.”
“Tell me, Sarojini,” Rohini Reporter said.
“Are you free to come to the school?” I asked. “Because I think our story just became news.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Rohini Reporter said. Then I heard a bunch of shuffling, and the sound of her blowing her hair out of her eyes, and then she repeated, “Tell me.”
As I was talking, she kept saying, “yes, yes, and then?” In the background, I could hear the scratch-scratch-scratching of her pen on her notebook, the click and whizz of cameras, and the metallic sounds of voices speaking over microphones.
When I finished, I asked, “Where are you, Ma’am – um, I mean, Miss – I mean –”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m at a press conference in your area. I’m with a lot of reporters.”
“Is Mrs. Reddy there?” I asked.
“In fact,” Rohini Reporter said, “she is.”
“Please tell Mrs. Reddy and your reporter friends that if they would like to come to the school right now, they are very welcome,” I said.
“How ki
nd of you, Sarojini,” Rohini Reporter said. “We’re on our way.” I could hear her smiling through the phone.
The second call I made was to Amma.
“Sarojini?” Amma asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Amma, I’m not coming to Madam’s house today.”
Amma listened without interrupting while I told her about the construction workers and Deepti and her Appa getting supplies donated and Amir getting paint and Rohini Reporter coming to write about what was happening.
“I’m going to talk to the reporter when she comes, Amma.”
“Talking to a reporter? Why?”
“Because the media is a powerful tool for justice.”
(Like I said, I might be a lousy detective, but I’m a pretty good lawyer.)
“Sarojini, these reporters are useless, and –” Amma started.
“And because it’s not fair,” I said, interrupting my Amma for maybe the first time in my life. “Why should kids pick up garbage and parents lose wages when the government is supposed to do all this? Why is everyone always trying to take things away from the people who don’t have very much to begin with?”
Amma sighed, and then she said, “If I knew that, kanna, I wouldn’t be breaking my back every day.”
We were both quiet then, Mrs. Naidu. Because sometimes, you understand someone better after just a couple of words than you do after a lifetime of conversations.
“I’m going to call Hema and ask her to be with you,” Amma said.
“Why?” I asked. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you,” Amma said. “And I know Hema Aunty can be brash and sometimes say sharp things. But she would do anything to protect you – you and all the other kids from our area.”
“I can do this myself, Amma.”
“I know you can. But you shouldn’t have to.”
After I hung up, I went down to the wall to return Miss’s phone, and everything happened at once. Amir showed up with brushes in his pocket and buckets of sky-blue paint looped around his handlebars and cuttings in his bicycle basket. Then Hema Aunty came with Kamala Aunty and Amina Aunty, even though I’m pretty sure Amma only called Hema Aunty. Kamala Aunty started picking up garbage, Amina Aunty got a group of kids together to plant cuttings in the soil where the garbage had been, and Hema Aunty started ordering people around, which I guess was her idea of helping. Then Rohini Reporter came with journalists from two TV stations and three newspapers.
As you might have guessed, Mrs. Naidu, Mrs. Reddy was not with them.
But that was okay, because there were plenty of other people for the reporters to interview instead.
First they interviewed Annie Miss, and she explained about our Child Rights Club.
Then they interviewed Deepti and her Appa. Deepti did most of the talking, and her Appa mostly just nodded and smiled shyly underneath his bushy moustache.
Then they interviewed Hema Aunty, because she said they had to, and she screamed a lot, but if you listened to the actual words she was saying, a lot of it made sense.
Then they interviewed me. I told them about how we were sick of being ignored by the Councillor and the HM and the Block Education Officer and everyone else who was supposed to help us with our school.
“Why do you need the government to intervene?” one of the reporters asked me.
“We don’t need them,” I said. “Just because we’re poor doesn’t mean that we don’t know how to take care of ourselves.”
“Then can’t you just do this yourselves?” another reporter asked.
“Of course we can do it ourselves,” I said. “But we shouldn’t have to.”
That was the quote that Rohini Reporter put in her story, which came out on Sunday afternoon, and which Amir and Deepti and I read out loud together in the special place.
Rohini Reporter also wrote about how while this was going on, Mrs. Reddy held a press conference where she lit a lamp to start an initiative for adolescent girls. When Rohini Reporter asked what Mrs. Reddy was doing about RTE considering what was happening at Ambedkar School, she said something about being dedicated to education. But the way Rohini Reporter wrote it, you could tell she thought Mrs. Reddy was acting pretty silly.
“I never thought I’d ever say this, but Hema Aunty is right,” Amir said. “That Councillor is completely useless.”
“At least the wall finally looks normal now,” Deepti said. “You know Hema Aunty’s son, Roshan? And Joseph, Mary Aunty’s son? They said that if we could get more colours, they can paint pictures on the wall. They’re pretty good, too – I’ve seen them drawing comics when they’re supposed to be working.”
“You guys got Roshan and Joseph to work?” Amir shook his head. “Wow. Now that deserves a story in the paper.”
“Front page,” Deepti agreed. And we all laughed.
“Do you think Mrs. Reddy read this?” I asked, tapping the newspaper.
“I hope so,” Deepti said, tearing especially fiercely into the dosa I brought her from home, “and I hope she feels terrible.”
“I doubt it,” I said, shaking my head.
“I wish we could get Greenhill into the paper,” Amir said. “I heard this kid in my class saying that the last time there was a bad article everyone went crazy and fixed the problem immediately.”
“What bad article are they going to write?” I asked. “The halls are too shiny? The equipment is too new?”
“Um, hello?” Deepti said. “This is the school that tried to bribe you and your Amma for a free seat, and you can’t think of a bad article?”
“I can’t talk to a reporter about that.”
“Why not?” Deepti asked.
I looked at Amir then, thinking he would help me, but he looked like he agreed with Deepti.
“If nobody talks about it, then the school will keep doing it,” Amir said.
“But even if I did speak to the papers about the bribe, how does that help Ambedkar School?” I asked.
I’m not sure what Deepti and Amir said after that, Mrs. Naidu, because the inside of my head was too noisy.
Because at that moment, I realized exactly how speaking to the papers could help Ambedkar School.
All the best,
Sarojini
August 28, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
A day or two after I last wrote to you I went to Vimala Madam’s house after school. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.
(I know, Mrs. Naidu. Things get weirder and weirder.)
It turns out Madam wanted to see me as well. When Amma answered the door, she said, “Go straight to the study.”
“Am I in trouble?” I asked.
“Did you do something wrong?”
(Which you’ll notice, Mrs. Naidu, was not an answer.)
“No,” I said.
“Then?” Amma said. “Go quickly. She’s very busy.”
So I straightened my skirt and patted down some of the curls that had come loose from my plaits (although I don’t know why, Mrs. Naidu, considering who I was going to see) and I knocked on the big, heavy wooden door.
The voice inside called barked, “Come.”
I pushed open the door, and Madam was sitting behind her desk, her glasses on the edge of her nose, her eyebrow raised, her hair puffed up in black and gray storm clouds.
When she saw me, she pushed her glasses up and her eyebrows down. Which I appreciated, because at least she was trying to be normal.
“Another excellent story in the papers, Sarojini,” Madam said. She had the English language version of the Southern Chronicle on her desk. She picked it up and said, “You gave such a wonderful quote. Brilliant.”
“Thank you, Madam,” I said. “But actually, I was just repeating what Amma said.”
“I am not surprised,” Madam said. “It takes a smart woman to raise a smart daughter like you.”
“Yes, Madam,” I said.
“So, now that you have the world’s attention, what’s next?” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her glasses slid down again, even though she didn’t touch them.
(I guess at this point, they’re trained to move straight to the end of her nose.)
“The thing is,” I said, sitting down stiffly, “even though we have used the media as a powerful tool, we still don’t have justice. Or, actually, we still don’t have money.”
“Justice, money,” Vimala Madam said, waving her hands in the air. “It all amounts to the same thing.”
I have no idea what that meant, Mrs. Naidu. But I said, “Yes, Madam,” because I think that’s what she was expecting me to say.
“This is a serious dilemma, Sarojini,” Madam said, in that voice she uses for lawyers and kids. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I think I might. I spoke to Annie Miss – that’s our teacher –”
“I met her,” Vimala Madam said, nodding. “Lovely woman. Very committed.”
“Right – um, I mean, yes Madam. I spoke to her and the anganwadi Miss, because the anganwadi Miss has lots of stuff at the centre, like plastic chairs and a stove and all these picture books. Anyway, they said that politicians don’t really give money. They usually give things. Like the person who was the Councillor before Mrs. Reddy gave the anganwadi Miss the chairs and the stove and everything.”
“I see,” Madam said, nodding.
“But we want a playground, and I don’t think the Councillor would donate something as big as that,” I continued. “I mean, actually, I don’t think she’ll donate anything. And the HM wouldn’t give Amma a budget, so we don’t know how much money the school has. Or, actually, we don’t know if the school has any money.”
“Your Amma mentioned,” Madam nodded.
(I was a little surprised by that, Mrs. Naidu – if you’ve noticed, Amma doesn’t exactly talk much, especially about what she calls “our problems.”)
“So based on all this evidence, it seems like we need to ask someone else for money for the playground,” I said.
Dear Mrs. Naidu Page 16