Satyavrat Mishra visits a school in Bihar which was once the opulent house of a civil servant.
The three-storey pink house is grand and the large black cast iron gate forbidding. The signboard of ‘Prathmik Vidyalaya Rukunpura Musahari’ looks totally out of place. This used to be the house of Shiv Shankar Verma, the former small-irrigation secretary of Bihar. He has been suspended for owning assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and his house has been confiscated by the state government under the new Bihar Anti-Graft Act and turned into a school for children from the “extremely backward” castes.
It’s morning and a small group of children in rubber slippers enters the house, now their school, full of enthusiasm. They sing the school prayer with gusto and push one another to reach their classrooms. They have every reason to be happy: the marble on the floor is from Rajasthan. None of the schools in the state has such floors. Most of the state government-run schools do not have a building at all. “We want to keep the school as neat as possible. We have told the maid to wash the floor at least twice a day. You know, it is rare to find such beautiful floor and we do not want it to be wasted,” says Usha Sinha, the principal, seated in her office which was earlier the guestroom on the ground floor.
But the school does not get to use the other luxuries Verma had collected. “Contrary to popular belief, we do not have air-conditioned classrooms. All the air-conditioners, furniture and other valuables were taken away by the police before the school was opened,” says Sinha. Still, for the children, this school is a world far removed from the dreary, harsh environs of the nearby Musahari block. “This school is the best. There are no power cuts and fans never stop running. We also get clean drinking water. We did not have these facilities in the old building and we like it here,” says Baby Kumari, a student of the 3rd standard.
What used to be the dining room of the Vermas on the ground floor is now her classroom. Rahul, her classmate, says: “The bathrooms are so big that my whole family can live in there. Come, I will show you.” The bathroom on the ground floor measures almost 100 sq ft. Those situated on the first and second floor are even bigger. Sinks and taps fitted in the bathrooms and kitchen display the logo of a high-end brand.
The swing in the angan is a real pleasure for the children who never run out of excuses to get onto that. And the neatly-groomed garden provides ample space for them to play. This is why a number of parents come every day to enroll their wards. “Initially, we were a bit sceptical about the success of the school. The place is a little far off and we do not have enough staff. However, we are getting very good response,” says Manju Kumari, a teacher.
The administration is now planning to turn the bedrooms on the first and second floors into separate classrooms. “Right now, classes for the 4th and 5th standards are being held in the living room on the ground floor. For the 3rd standard, we run the classroom in the dining room,” says Principal Sinha. “For the 1st and 2nd standards we are using a bedroom on the ground floor, while another bedroom has been turned into a staff room. As the number [of students] will increase, we will use the space available on the first and second floors.”
However, not everybody in the neighbourhood is happy with what’s going on in here. Many houses here are owned by government servants, and they are scared. The fear is best described by an elderly man at a milk kiosk near the school: “Nobody took this law seriously until they confiscated this building. Many of our neighbours are planning to sell their houses. Are you interested?”