Twenty pairs of intense, sharp, clear eyes set in frail and small bodies, peering into your face trying to listen with concentration interrupted by restlessness and distraction can be unnerving for even a seasoned teacher not just an ill prepared one like me. It was 2002 and I was a novice teacher unnerved with my little classroom impossibly filled with raucous children hell bent on doing anything but sit steady and listen. But it was not that their restlessness was driven by ill intent, they seem animated by spirits stronger than their frail bodies could handle. But then those faces were in their own way remarkably diverse in colour and character and told me tales that I had never heard. Their little bodies were clothed with colours of playing in the dirt, some torn, few mended, few slipping to reveal tender limbs or shy bottoms, faces smeared with dust and tears or of the dried ice cream around chin and cheek, tousled hair, one pigtail with a missing ribbon, another with a broken clasp, one with sores on his feet, one who had waded in the gutter, many with a wide grin in an endless inventiveness of childhood pranks. Their satchels were as diverse as themselves and the state of their books and notes made me feel faint. The satchels’ real treasures were broken bits of coloured glass, some forgotten half eaten fruit, a feather, a drawing crumpled between books, chocolate wrappers, matchboxes, empty cigarette boxes, felt pens with missing caps, pencils with chewed ends, a magnet etc. They would give a sweet smile that would make one swoon at its innocence and resume their pranks of pulling a girl’s pigtail, or passing another’s pencil box across the room, or eating up someone’s tiffin box. I was helpless and crestfallen not knowing how to handle my little class.
