I have a personal adage – “I was born to my parents but was brought up in VKVs”. VKV stands for Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya. In this write-up, I am paying my heartfelt tribute to the selfless and relentless work done by my teachers and other members of the organization that carved a whole new dimension not only for me, but for a whole generation of this remote Himalayan state of north-east India. This is an untold story about many a die-hard and well educated young men and women who came to serve the forgotten tribal populace in this remote corner of the nation. These young men could have made a decent career elsewhere going by their educational qualifications but they chose to live a life of sacrifice for the nation. This is the story of a silent revolution yet unheard. It would be wrong to brand these people missionaries but their missionary zeal remains unsurpassed. Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalayas are scores of schools run by an unpretentious and modest non-governmental organization named Vivekananda Kendra with its headquarters in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu. They were probably the first mainland NGO to arrive in the remote and nascent state of Arunachal Pradesh, then a Union territory. The organization has done tremendous and exemplary contribution in advancing education and conservation of indigenous culture of this far-flung state, many in this country still don’t even know about it existence. In contrast to modern day educational institutes to cluster in urban areas (especially the private ones), Vivekananda Kendra established its schools in far flung remote areas of Arunachal Pradesh in order to reach out to the rural population. The organization had only one agenda and that was to spread education and the message of the great intellectual saint Swami Vivekananda. It needn’t be emphasized that Swami Vivekananda was a hard core secular saint and preached self-realization in line with “man-making nation building”.
My affiliation with Vivekananda Kendra started sometime in the summer of 1986 when I joined its Sher school located in a tiny village called Cher. My first surprise was the way the students mobbed us as we arrived in the school and it soon dawned on me that they just came to see our 1976 model Mahindra jeep! Majority of the students here were from rural background and had never seen a jeep before in their lives! Let alone TV, telephone or train, the rural folks were strangers even to toothpaste! So I had my first introduction to humility and insight into the state of affairs in our state. I stayed in VKV for the next 14 years. The institutional curriculum and culture ensured that this rural-urban divide wouldn’t affect either me or anyone. TV was a strict ban in all VKV schools then and after a few months I forgot missing my favourite Sunday TV show “Mickey Mouse” on the Doordarshan. Comfort of Mother’s embrace and Papa’s consolation apart, here we were out fending for ourselves even as tiny tots. It was down to cleaning toilets, sweeping the hostel floor, gardening, gathering firewood and bamboo from the forest, breaking rocks (to construct a pathway from hostel to academic section), clearing the bushy undergrowth in our school compound and of course fighting off bullies. It might sound very cruel going by today’s standards of flashy schools but it was an altogether novel as well as noble experience. Our dear teachers took part in all these activities zealously and led by example. It taught me so many things in life. It made us all sturdy mentally and physically, that would stay in me for the rest of my life. Nonetheless the academic atmosphere was totally enticing, intellectual and thought provoking. I still remember the class we had after dinner in the football ground under the clear night sky and our teacher taught us preliminary cosmology (of course some of us did doze off!).
Hostel life taught us more about group activities and individualism naturally became discouraged. It was left to oneself to preserve one’s individuality. For instance during games period in the evening, I would often indulge myself in feeding the ants in which I took great pleasure. The only time of the week we had time for ourselves was the weekly holiday which for some God forsaken reason was Wednesday as against the usual norm – Sunday! Even on the weekly holidays almost half the day was spent cleaning the hostel, window panes, corridors and toilets. The rest of the day was spent in sneaking out of school to raid some villager’s orange orchard, bathing out in the nearby Ranga river or playing hide and seek. So sometime in the late afternoons, I did pen down a few letters to my parents which was usually a well laid format in the school. It would begin something like this,
“Dear Mummy and Papa,
How are you, I am fine. I am very sad and missing you.
I want the following things;
1. Hajmola – 3 bottle
2. Notebook – 5 nos.
3. Sketch pen
4. Biscuit – 10
Thank you,
Yours loving son,
………”
And if there was a word about a good letter writing skills ten tiny tots would line a cot to copy down the same letter from that ‘good writer’. Inadequacy of English proficiency required that many of us draw some picture depicting himself, Mummy, Papa and other siblings. On several occasions I had the honour of drawing these pictures for many of my hostel mates and they would dictate what they wanted to convey! Life in the hostel was very monotonous but never melancholic. The school was situated in a tiny village and surrounded by thick forest. We learned to find joy and laughter in every small ways – making shelters for our school dogs (actually stray dogs), competing with fellow mates for best output from the tiny sweat pea gardens that many of us maintained, wrestling competitions, betting on beetle fights (with slate pencils), playing pranks on each other, sharing experiences of the recent vacation, huddling around a story teller (a student or teacher) so and so forth. One favourite pastime was the illustrated story telling wherein a student would draw characters in a comic book pattern on a slate and tell his story. Usually the story would be nothing but a self-concocted one however none would question the logic or rationale of the story line! We all just took pleasure in the way a story had been illustrated and it hardly mattered to anyone to trouble one’s brain.
The usual monotony of the school routine was interspersed with the incidents of elephant rampages in and around our school compound. To make matters worse there were tigers in the forest north of our school compound and they made no hesitation to pay a visit to the tiny village. Every other day we heard news of some or the other villager’s cattle being killed. On several occasions while we went out for our morning jog we had the chance to witness the gruesome site of the tiger’s feast the night before. The sight of half-eaten and severely mutilated carcass on the road side would send a chill down our spines. To make matters worse on some days tiger pug marks were even seen inside the school campus. That made our late-night nature calls a really scary business as the toilets were situated away from the hostel and the corridors had no grills. On some days strict instructions were issued by teachers to not to go to washroom at night and buckets were placed within the hostel for the purpose! The elephants were not far behind in harassing us. One fine morning we woke up to the news that elephants have razed down some class rooms. Now what had classrooms to do anyway with the elephants? After morning prayers we all went to assess the damage and I tell you what macabre sight it was. It was as though an earth-quake happened. It was clearly a rampage and as if the elephants had some very deep grudge against the classrooms (as many of us had at that time!). One elephant even left its mark (of its trunk) on a blackboard which was surprisingly spared! Even the desk and benches were crushed to pieces and chalk powder was strewn all over. I guess the elephants might have wondered why they turned fair after the rampage operation! In those days we lived in livid and constant fear of these two marauding animal groups and, it was as though the tigers and the elephants were competing with each other to scare the hell out of tiny tots of the school. Those were scary times and my world was the school compound itself and I had then only known fear of the wild animals. Years have gone by and today as I confront a much larger world, I see so many evils lurking in the society that my fears have only been numbed. None could be more fearsome than a ferocious tiger or madder than a marauding elephant.
Swami Vivekananda never preached religion, he preached only spirituality. So during my stay in VKV schools, I had the chance to acquaint with the ideas of a great revolutionary and intellectual saint of the early 19th century. I had had no particular taste for religion since childhood and still today I vehemently refuse to be identified with any religion. I had always believed in God and constantly held that my concept of god is too large to be accommodated in any religion. I found great inspiration from the life and thoughts of Swami Vivekananda. Great many volumes have been written on this man and honestly I have never read them. All that I know about him is thorough my teachers and a book I received as prize for standing first in the monthly examinations. According my opinion, if India has to become a developed nation we just need to go by what this man had said on nation building. The rest will automatically follow. Today as an administrator and in a service which has paramount duty to uplift the mass, I have always gone by the principles of this great intellectual and I can vouch for his ideas that they work. The story of Vivekananda Kendra in Arunachal Pradesh began in 1977 when they established _ schools in some of the remotest corners of the state. It is said that when they first came here, the teachers went door to door in the villages persuading parents to send their wards to the newly established school. Many people in these parts were alien to the concept of education then. It was with great effort on part of the pioneer teachers and other workers of Vivekananda Kendra that they managed to get some students for the schools and thus began the spectacular journey of the VKVs. A glorious 33 years have passed hence and today the reputation of the schools is such that parents make a beeline to admit their children in these schools!
My intention is not to advertise any organisation or institution but I just want to express my heartfelt gratitude to those selfless and angelic men and women who braved all odds to serve in this remote state. They could have had lucrative careers elsewhere given their educational qualifications (mind you, I am speaking of 1980s), but they chose to chose a path for themselves. This reminds me of the famous poem by Robert Frost titled “The Road Not Taken”.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Yes, my most respected teachers you have made that difference. That difference is what we all are today. A generation of people from Arunachal Pradesh have benefited from your endeavours and your sacrifices. This write up is an ode to that crack team of young men and women who braved the predator ridden thick forests of Arunachal Pradesh to establish schools and educate the rural rusty children and what fine gentlemen and ladies you have transformed them into. We do salute the contribution of the likes of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Netaji Subash Chandra Bose in making this nation but personally I will give you a higher salute for the silent revolution that you all initiated in this forgotten tribal populace of the remote far-east corner of India. Your contributions are mightily commendable and will be etched in the history of Arunachal Pradesh for ever.
Dr. Joram Beda, IAS
The author is a 2008 batch Officer of the Indian Administrative Service and currently working as Sub Divisional Magistrate cum Assistant Commissioner in Moga district, Punjab.