The boys are back in town...

So I have spent quite a while droning on about India’s little quirks and idiosyncrasies that I haven’t really had a chance to talk about the boys town – specifically what makes the boys town tick – the boys who live there. By the way though my title for this post is completely wrong - the boys are just leaving for the hols... oh well its a good song and it sounds nice!

It is an odd bunch of people who live here, each and every one a unique character with their own ways of doing things… whether that is an obsession with cars, marbles or even flared trousers (Although an unhealthy interest in flares isn’t actually unique to one kid, the whole of Chennai are smitten with them – they even make an appearance in the majority of school uniforms). There is even one boy who has been trying every Mission Impossible aerobatic, James bond sleight or Covert-op sneak to try and get past me to grab an extra pack of biscuits from the office – forget not being able to watch BBC, I have my very own ‘Spooks’ right here…

Oops – a toad just leaped into the office and over my foot…

But I digress – the boys’ one overriding interest is cricket, which is brilliant as I can’t stand the game! They play it morning, noon and night – except if its raining, drizzling or even slightly spitting – schools get days off due to rain storms, which despite being labeled monsoons just remind me of a rainy day in England except slightly hotter – nothing really to complain about. I find it funny that if a patch of rain comes along India grinds to a complete halt, people dive for cover and the power cuts suddenly out… thank God they don’t get snow, eh?

Back to cricket however as the overriding interest, generally the boys play four games simultaneously in their playground (which isn’t very big) with four rubber cricket balls which tend to accidentally bombard anyone passing by. I still, despite having several attempts at playing the game, cannot see the attraction in standing around for five days hitting a ball with a stick, but they seem to love it…

When not playing cricket typically the boys will play marbles, do their washing or even study. I noticed the concept of studying in India is different from that in the UK – in India when studying they sit on the floor or at a desk and read their books write out class notes in complete silence for many hours on end. In the UK (Note: this is for me at least, and I can admit this only now I have finished my A2s with half decent grades) studying was lying on my bed, watching movies on my laptop whilst trying to psychically absorb the course information from the textbook open on the desk, halfway across the room…

The boys also have a real love for Tamil movies – basically Bollywood but in Tamil – the local language. These are all musicals and really the sole form of entertainment – all of the music they listen to is from their movies (which means you end up hearing the same songs from the latest movie about 20 times a day which drives you mad!) If you turn on a TV you can only really either watch movies or cricket… neither of which I understand! They couldn’t comprehend why when I whacked out the Ipod, before it broke RIP, I didn’t even have a single Tamil song – they completely believe that apart from Michael Jackson, Tamil songs are the only and most famous music in the world! In honor of the ground-breaking Xmas number 1 in the UK, I played them RATM and their reaction was hilarious as they tried to be polite about it… I guess they aren’t ready for rock yet…

But the boys are brilliant, intelligent, funny and caring. Every single on of them works harder and is more dedicated to their studies than I ever could be – for a starter their universities don’t have the opposite from the UK culture of drinking, clubbing or partying – they just go to learn, and learn completely sober... One day I tried explaining ‘Fresher’s Week’ to them - they couldn’t grasp it, they were shocked by the idea of people their age drinking. The ethics in India are so different – no wonder India is growing technologically so fast when universities are actually places of learning!

However whilst I make quirky little jokes, there is more... Behind the smiling faces there are children who have known complete abject poverty, children who have lived in slums made from materials salvaged from the rubbish tips. Some of these boys will, at the end of this very week commemorate the anniversary of the great Tsunami that indiscriminately stole their homes, their sibling and their parents. There is even one boy in the project, a boy who dreams of one day working for NASA and reaching the stars, a boy who only survived bone cancer by having his infected leg amputated above the knee; he is now condemned to spend every day hopping around on old crutches because his prosthetic leg gets caught in the bike he has to pedal everyday to school… These boys are incredible, young, vibrant people and they have seen things we cannot imagine, still however they get on with life and strive for more with a cheeky little grin and the odd pinched pack of digestives bikkies…

Tim's school trip...

Today I visited a few of the local schools in the area near me. It was a bit of a shock!!

One that I visited was a government school for those who are below the poverty line. When I first arrived I reckoned the facilities were suitable maybe for a school of 400 but 1200 pupils attended it, despite this it only had 24 teachers... Class sizes easily reached up to 120 pupils

Picture trying to teach a class the size of a whole year in a school in Belgium or the UK squeezed into a classroom built for maximum 40 - especially as the class is full of energetic teenagers! In a discussion I had with one of the teachers he said 'the size of the school and the needs of the pupils, there ought to be at least 70 teachers'.

That however does not tell the truth about the facilities: The classrooms were blocks of bare rooms, the classrooms not large enough though for any chairs or desks - the kids did their school work on their laps...

I visited on an exam day to see the pupils doing some important tests. I saw the kids trailing long lines out of the doors of the classrooms into the playground, sat cross legged on the floor in the dust next to where children were playing and running around, all the while trying to answer an important exam paper. As is the norm for India goats, dogs and cows were also wondering around grazing freely - just imagine trying to sit a gcse or A-level equivalent exam sat on the floor outside, surrounded with children playing and goats wandering around you! Then couple it with the fact that we are coming to the end of the monsoon season and at the moment flash storms are common - you maybe sat outside writing a paper, with all mentioned above, under a small overhang of the roof in thunder & rain...

As I say it was a bit of a shock - especially as the students were not moaning or complaining - they just wanted to learn, to do well in exams, to get to a good uni. The fact is that these facilities were what they were brought up with, what they were used to. But most of all they were adamant that a little thing like astronomical class sizes, minuscule class rooms and not even a stray cow during an exam would get in the way of their dream of the money, the job and the all important BMW...



P.s. I have now got a camera to show you all the things that I write about! However at the moment I have no way of uploading photos to the computer off of said cam... but expect photos soon!