The Forgotten Schoolhouse
In a village street that seemed willingly overgrown with
grass, and standing in the far- gone end of it among the reeling walls that
addressed secrets to each other under the breath of many years was a ruining
building, with lamented windows, with scrawled walls that had seen their better
days, and the door was so rusty that any ghost worthy of the name might have
moaned through it. It was a calliopaean horse pegged as the old schoolhouse to
the villagers. It was on the route that children took to the new modern school
and they dare one another to look through its broken wooden door. It was to
them an uninhabited spot with dusty blackboard and empty desks, but once it had
been the centre of the village--a place where dreams had been nursed, where
future had quietly taken shape as in the hand of a potter. And it was going to
beat again because of a man who was not seen in years: Master Wali.
The Return of Master Wali
Master Wali had at one time been its most honored teacher,
and the boy who was capable of nothing but sloth Master Wali had once been the
most honored teacher in the village, and had the knack of making out of the
laziest child a reader or an interpreter of dreams or a workman. But since some
personal loss--the death of his only son, which had been sudden--he had quietly
resigned, padlocked the former school-house where he had once been a teacher,
and disappeared out of the village. The years came by and rumor filled the
silence. Others said he had ended up insane with grief, others that he had
taken to begging in the city. Nobody knew, though, actually. Until an misty
morning, when already the sun was beginning to peek over the hills, he came
back. Dressed too in the ragged waistcoat, but with a white beard today and
carrying in his eyes the weight of many years of suffering, Master Wali went
down the old dirt road and stood facing the deserted schoolhouse. Silently he
opened the creaky door and entered.
The Mission in Silence
He made no answer to the inhabitants of that village. And he
made no explanation of why he was back or what he would do. Day after day he
would merely dust the dusky floor, wipe the jagged windows, chalk off the cob
webbed blackboard, and do with the painstaking love which a man would bestow,
which a bereaved man would bestow, upon a lost loved one. Others stood afar,
and whispers went around about his coming, people looked out at him, and feared
to come near. The children were attracted in particular. They had been told by
their parents how Master Wali had made learning seem magical--how he could
transform a dull lesson into an adventure story, how he made pupils set their
goals and move towards them even though they might have to go barefoot over the
mountains. Gradually the rumours became curiosity. Parents started wondering
whether he was reopening the school. But already a fresh one had been erected
by the government, so why bother with the old broken version?
A New Kind of Classroom
And then one morning Master Wali affixed a hand-painted
notice to the schoolhouse door: “Learning to the Ones That Were Left Behind.” It
was in the evening after the sun had set behind the hills, when three children
barefooted, and wearing ragged clothing at that, entered the school, the shy
children in poor families. They had never seen the inside of the new government
school--it was too far, too crowded, too costly to cope with on the scanty
income of their parents. Master Wali received them very kindly with a nod and
went in with them. He even lectured them on chalk and dusty blackboard, with no
computer, no electricity, fire so strong that it lit up the place. He did not
merely pass on to them alphabets or numbers-he passed on to them the greatness
of being disciplined, the charm of stories and the seat of powers of
imagination. In a few days still more children arrived--girls who never had
been to school, orphans who had nobody to sign their forms, boys who had to be
at work in the daytime and only had evenings at their disposal. All were
welcomed by Master Wali.
Resistance from the Comfortable
The local authorities did not waste too much time. The new
school headmaster termed it as an illegal setup. He warned and ranted to
authorities. Even some of the villagers, who had been especially those who had
been resting content with the notion that their children were already in a
so-called modern school, started to criticize Master Wali. We would tell them:
He is just confusing our kids. What is an old man with a blackboard going to
tell us that our new school could not?” However Master Wali did not change. He
went on teaching by a kerosene lamp and went on illustrating stories by his
voice and gradually began changing lives and lives in silence.
A Girl with No Name
There came one day a ragged girl with unlocked hair, dirt-smeared cheeks and a trauma silence in her eyes. She never said any word; never her name. Master Wali was not asked. He passed her chalk and indicated the board. She wrote the alphabet A beautifully. He smiled, nodded and left her be. Still she did not miss but weeks at a time. Sometimes she shed tears when writing a story about a lost bird which found its way home. The same evening she informed Master Wali that her name is Zoya, that she was an orphan of a flood and that now that she was being treated like an encumbrance by a distant aunt. But when I come here, I feel great, I feel like I count. Henceforth, Master Wali ensured that she sat on the front bench, and read the first paragraph and led any group activity. Zoya soon turned out to be the most confident pupil in the classroom and the more significant voice of girls who were only thought to be silent shadows.
The Inspection Day
Months passed. Now the ill-fated school-house was no longer
the deserted place. It was news even in the neighboring towns. One headline of
a local newspaper read: “Retired Teacher Resurrects Footsore School and
Dreams.” Suddenly, one day people came unannounced, government officials. They
had skepticism, cameras and notepads. Where are your textbooks? So where is
your money? Who in the name of mercy allowed you to?” they hurried to ask. Master
Wali merely gave them a register and in it the names of the students, who had
attended their classes and handful progress reports. He presented them with old
notebooks in which the children had written an essay, drawn a map and solved an
arithmetic. He read them a recorded poem which was being sung by Zoya and her
classmates. The authorities did not say anything. When the last and youngest of
their number, recently from the training school, approached and offered, He
said, by way of excuse, “Sir, may I sit in the class to-day?” Master Wali
nodded and the man sat through the whole session without saying anything. Towards
the end he rose and said with emphasis: This is more than a school. That is a
revolution.”
Recognition Beyond Borders
In a few weeks, the school became a community learning
center that was legalized. Books and stationeries were sent by NGOs. One artist
volunteered to repaint the walls. Benches were repaired with the help of a
carpenter. The wretched blackboard was discarded and another one put up, though
Master Wali had retained the old one as an idea of his early days. Shortly, he
was interviewed by the local TV channels. He was also humble and stated nothing
more than saying that he did not do anything new. I simply thought that there
could not be a forgotten child.” Efforts of his brought stories to spread on
social media sites and donations started to flow in. His money was spent on
materials and the children (clothes, food and better study materials). He did
not alter his life style or accept compliments. He was an academic bondman.
The Lesson Beyond Lessons
Over the years his students entered high schools and others
have been on scholarships. Zoya herself became a teacher, and established a
girls literacy center in a village near her home. She used to remark:
Everything I am started with a dusty blackboard behind it. The children of lost
streets, shattered homes and suppressed dreams by one by one found their voice
within the walls of Ramshackle room. Master Wali did not go a single day
without teaching even when he was not feeling well. And when he died, as he had
often said he would, and left his family in a fight with landlords at what the
old people call the witching time, and lay in peace in his grave until another
winter when he walked out in his sleep to quiet his fellowmen, and never came
back, then all the people in the village, the officials and the teachers and
the parents and the children--all walked in his funeral procession. They laid
him away next to the schoolhouse, Under the tree he was sitting that day When
he was correcting the homework. There was a stone and simple words incised on
it: The Man Who Taught Us to Dream.
Legacy on the Blackboard
Today, the school has been renamed as, The Wali Academy of
Hope. There is a corner of the room, however, in which the dusty blackboard
remains. When the graduating children have finished school, new teachers allow
the students to write their names on it as a silent way of honoring the man who
gave them meaning. Storyistan, where his story is highlighted today, gets
messages all around the country-messages of parents, teachers, and of those who
dream of seeing one man and a forgotten classroom. And somewhere, when some
student writes his first sentence or reads his first poem, Master Wali walks
again--not in chalk or walls, but in the hearts of students and their teachers,
in the ability to live with courage and kindness and the steadfast belief that
every day that one can study brings one nearer to dignity.
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