Chapter 3 Making a real difference (first draft)

A hostel and a school!

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Things started happening very quickly. We had founded a hostel in a moment, literally, and, with funds raised in Maleny by selling raffle tickets and the garden party, we covered the cost of renovating the building.

Responsibilities for the hostel lay with Rekha, Tinku’s wife, as coordinator and Bodhi, the family’s domestic helper, as house mother. In reality, all three of these wonderful people became like parents to the children who came to live there, along side of Tinku and Rekha’s young daughter Shibra, who became like a sister.

I was there in the village when Tinku had told the community that we were starting a children’s home. We had children and their mums waiting outside. I think Tinku was overwhelmed by the feeling of need. In the end he settled on those most at risk, a group of seven children. I’ll never forget the four boys and three girls standing in a tight little huddle on the doorstep, the oldest girl holding the youngest boy, little more than a toddler. I’m sure for these children it was a moment of fear and trepidation as they put their trust in this family. For the rest of us, it was profoundly moving.

We had two rooms upstairs in that house. The children’s room was connected to Tinku’s house by a platform that allowed access to Tinku and Rekha when in need at night. During the day, the base of the steps to the children’s home lay directly in the outdoor food preparation of Tinku’s home. There was always someone around, and the children really became extensions of the family as they grew through childhood and became teenagers.

That first night, I was upstairs in Tinku’s house when I heard a rumbling sound coming from outside on the street. I went down to see the men of the village sitting in a long line on the bench outside Tinku’s house. He explained to me that the men were concerned. They thought we were going to sell the children! Such was the culture of the place. I don’t know what I said, but three points came to my mind and Tinku relayed them for me. I have never been able to remember what they were, but after a moment’s consideration, the men slowly got to their feet and shuffled off without a word. We had passed our first crisis.

It then became a matter of education. It was clear that the village school was not suiting its purpose, as children were often failing end of year exams and not being able to move forward onto the next year. It’s easy with aftersight to see what we could have done differently. Looking back on this now, perhaps we could have worked with the local government to try to improve the standard of the school. Tinku, who knew the people and the politics very well, chose a different pathway. First off he organised tuition for ‘our’ children, joined by some others, sitting on the flat rooftop of a village home. But the need was too great. The next thing I knew, there was a phone call from Tinku. “Didi, I have bought my uncle’s land. We are starting a school!”

This was how Tinku operated. Ever aware of the many keen social needs in his community, he would step in on an impulse and find a solution. There in the midst of the paddy fields, alongside of the back road to Purulia, he mapped out the site for a school, which he proudly showed me on my next visit. Back in Australia, the fundraising went on furiously. We now had a team of people who were helping organise events and deal with administration. This was now an unpaid full-time job for me, and it would remain so for four years. Having dived in, there was nothing for it but to see it through, by thick or by thin. And thin it did get at times, but that is a matter for the next chapter. The school was an outstanding success. On opening day we had something like 180 children, grouped from prep to year 6, the final year of primary school, both boys and girls. The preps were there with their little slates and chalk, learning their Bengali alphabet and reciting their lessons, in an open building with a roof over their heads. The other children were grouped in classes according to age. We had seven teachers and a principal running the school.

The students came from the cluster of villages in the local area. A highlight for me was when the children of 'the snake village’, Loharsol, arrived in the bicycle rickshaw school buses funded by The Gully group back here in Australia. These were the children who had refused school in their local area due to having been ostracised by staff and students alike as tribal people. It was moving to see older children of eight or nine years sitting beside the children in prep and learning their letters on the slate boards. They proved to be the best learners, quickly moving up through the grades, and excelling at school, particularly in art.

This school is still in operation today. It was closed during the covid pandemic, but again now opens its gates every morning from 8 to 10, when the students come to us for their education and morning snack of biscuits, after which they cross the fields by foot to the village school, where they receive a hot meal every day. Our first children have now graduated from high school and some are attending university. Of the first group of children to go through our hostel, one is studying a Bachelor of Arts, specialising in English. Others will have gone on to also do well, but as yet we do not have the statistics (hopefully to be included in the final edition).

The hostel also is continuing. After those first six years or so, the hostel moved over to the school site, where we have had up to sixteen boys at a time living onsite in their own accommodation block, with a house mother in attendance during the day and a guard who sleeps onsite at night. The boys help tend the massive organic garden bed, overseen by Tinku’s mother, that provides a good deal of their daily food supply. Tinku’s vision developed a small paradise on the piece of land that houses the school and the hostel. He systematically planted the land with Ayurvedic trees around a deep pool built in theory to start a fishing industry. Storms and irregular weather events have wreaked havoc on the school buildings, which have been rebuilt several times and each time improved from the original small, baking hot low-ceilinged brick rooms as they were. Now in addition, several rooms have been developed following the outlines depicted in Tinku’s artistic sketches. These high ceilinged rooms with overhanging roofs are now offered as guest rooms in what has become known as the hostel. Tinku’s unique art pervades the site, a homage to him and his dedication to local people and the arts, enjoyed by visitors who come for conferences or for weekends away in this idyllic garden artist’s residential location. If it sounds like an ad, it is - it’s worth taking a visit!

With the hostel and the school operating, we knew we were really making a difference to the lives of many people in this rural area of Purulia district, West Bengal.