Blessed

There are days when I am simply at bliss and to my good fortune, these are frequent. Yesterday was one such day where I travelled to a serene place 100km away from Bengaluru. I waited for bus with this to accompany me:

For a stretch there was nothing but tranquil glimpses of paddy fields, coconut farms and the horizon adorned with a few bulges of hills. 

My work was to train 80+ teachers on the innovative use of low cost experiments for their teaching. The training room overlooked this scenery:

I witnessed pure joy of learning and curiosity when these adults immersed in building their own scientific toys.

I can daresay that even if two out of these 80+ classrooms empower kids to construct scientific toys on their own then my purpose is served!

I chance across many interesting conversations during my field visits and one such conversation took place yesterday when this lady proudly announced that her son, in spite of scoring 98% in 12th choose to study law for his undergrad opposing everyone in the family and she along with her husband supported his decision. Now this proud mother dreams of seeing her 16 year old daughter trace her brother's footsteps and choose anything of her choice and succeed at it.

Throughout the day I challenged 2 of them for their caste biases and strtongly encouraged women participants to not shy away from speaking out and held counsels with a few women regarding the status of women teachers in rural areas. The day ended with talking to a young man about his struggles in the metropolitan Bengaluru city while he earned a decent life for himself.