The Householder's Epiphany

What does your father do? He’s a drug addict. This dramatic, hypothetical exchange may not be out of place in a realistic play or film. But under a real sun, between real people, it would be a particularly unreal, lashing experience for the one who is replying, not to mention the speechless questioner. A slum on the outskirts of Amritsar, like so many nameless others, has children who would answer to this description. This one is called Maqboolpura, a squalid dump teeming with drug addicts who perish by their fatal habit, leaving behind traumatised widows and children, the latter very much vulnerable to crime and—obeying a hellish logic—drugs. A child from this slum, whom fate has been relatively good to, and who is a grown-up man now, tries, along with his wife, to change things.

Ajit Singh and Satpal Kaur, both schoolteachers, have set up a school for children of drug addicts at Maqboolpura. Every morning at eight, their normal bustling household, which includes two children and parents, is transformed into the Citizen’s Forum Vidyamandir. As many as 163 kids armed with books and pencils troop into the bedrooms, hall, terrace and verandas. Ajit’s aged father vacates his little room for the class III students who squeeze in, chirping happily. It’s not only education. There’s also that sense of being momentarily relieved of the sickening reality back home.

Ajit knows. When he was growing up, he battled daily the humiliations at school for being a Maqboolpura lad. Schooling over, he joined college and then got a job as a schoolteacher. He began raising his own little family in the slum. He was a contented householder till the day his son began asking questions. About the illicit liquor being sold openly in the locality. About the deaths caused by drug addiction—many of the victims had been neighbours. About their children. What was to become of them?

These disturbing questions piled on Ajit’s mind till he realised exactly what was to be done—Vidyamandir came into being, in 1999, with 22 children for the first roll call. The money came from the couple’s modest salaries and the teachers were mostly senior students from the same locality. Like Rimpi and Veena, two sisters whose father Kamal Kishore, a drug addict, died eight years ago. Rimpi teaches class I to V. She is in class X herself. Every month-end, Rimpi gets Rs 300 which, as Ajit says, "is a stipend of sorts to make the task a little attractive." The two sisters say it makes them "feel good" to be able to do something for kids in their neighbourhood. Parveen Kaur, an orphan, earns the highest stipend of Rs 700 and is a principal of sorts in the absence of Ajit and Satpal.

There has been help from other quarters too. "Since both of us were schoolteachers, it was easy for us to get second-hand books from the students of our schools," recalls Satpal Kaur. Then there was Brij Bedi of the ngo Citizen’s Forum, who provided uniforms and books for the children. His wife, supercop Kiran Bedi, visited the school in February this year and announced a contribution of Rs 6,000 per month from Navjyoti, an ngo whose general secretary she is. "This money has enabled us to hire two additional rooms in a nearby house for Rs 1,200. The rest of the money helps in paying salaries," says Ajit.

A lot of emotional bonds are at work here. "The school has given me so many daughters as I have none of my own," says Satpal Kaur. She and her husband spend their evenings coaching the senior students-cum-teachers, most of whom are preparing for exams. "We could have moved out to a more decent house in the town as both of us are government schoolteachers and earn enough to afford a decent house. But I have found my calling. The smiles on the faces of these children is worth a thousand houses," says Satpal Kaur with pride. If you think you can help in any way, contact Ajit or Satpal at 0183-2584294.