The Village School In Maharashtra For Grandparents

On a warm Sunday Afternoon, when everybody is lazing around and enjoying the much needed rest day, an unusual class is in session. While the 19 year old teacher calls for attention, students are excitedly talking about their school bags. Sounds like a normal classroom setting. Only the students are enthusiastic grandfathers aged 60 and above. Reinstating the phrase ‘Age is just a number’ and ‘Learning knows no limit’, is an innovative concept is brightening the days and lives of many grandfathers.

After his ‘Ajibainchi Shala’ – (The school for grandmothers) gave a platform to all elderly women keen to study even at the age of 90, teacher and founder Yogendra Bangar is now taking this initiative to another level in the Shelari village, Murbad on the outskirts of Mumbai, with a new set of co-ed classes that open up the same opportunities to elderly men. “People used to ask me what about grandfather’s education, That’s where the idea germinated’. Bangar states.

Although they are yet to add all proper facilities and amenities for the school, the classes commenced on 28 January with 25 men and women in attendance. A small decorated tent in the clearing serves as the classroom for the students. Women don orange sarees and men are in white uniforms while they discuss their prized possession, their school bags. Two residents of Mumbai, Sophie Ahmed and Suchi Mehra who had heard about Bangar’s elderly education helped boost the confidence by sending uniforms and bags that serve as encouragement and pique their interest in school.

The classes begin at 10 am on a Sunday morning and go on till 5 pm. To make it convenient for the grandfathers of neighboring villages of Dahigaon and Shelari, the school sends a car to pick them up and drop them. Very few of the students have had the opportunity to attend school in their youth and this opens up a whole new avenue of possibilities. While most of them wish to study so that they can read the sacred texts on their own, many are excited to learn how to sign their names, to see their names in their own writing. Every school has it’s sweethearts, and this school is no different either. Many couples come to school together in order to learn something.

While Bangar is still working on all amenities, the response has been very heartwarming and many elderly are willing to travel on their own to get the chance to study again. The school is giving the elderly a new purpose in life. Instead of just sitting idle in the house chanting prayers and watching television, they get a chance to learn something new and interact with new people.

Feature image courtesy The Indian Express (photo by Deepak Joshi).