 "When life starts at 60")
At 60, GK Swamy (an economist – he did his master's from Madras university - by training and a consultant by profession) and his wife Chinni decided to call it a day. They wrapped up their life in Navi Mumbai, sold their only flat and moved bag and baggage towards the hills. They also decided they were done with earning money and needed to give back to society.
Swamy and I are meeting at the Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS) in Uttarakhand’s Purkal village where he now runs a school – CBSE affiliated - for 435 children (By April 2017, there will be 510, classes typically have 16 girls and 9 boys) from the lowest income groups in the area. The parent community comprises daily wage earners, rickshaw pullers, watchmen, carpenters and others whose yearly income is below Rs 1 lakh.
PYDS is a gem in the forest. I had come earlier for the school’s founder’s day and found many students were adept at art (they put up a fabulous exhibition). Pottery produced by the children is as good as what one sees at exhibitions in the capital. Several students speak fluent English. At the founder’s day, they put up a whole skit in Sanskrit – which went right over my head. Dance, debate, sports, music, theatre, art, yoga are all part of the curriculum. Children are encouraged to do everything with their hands - cook, bake, carpenter, electrical work, plumbing. Swamy says he never pays for these jobs as the older children are quite adept.
A watchman’s daughter has just left for University of Portland in Oregon for a master’s degree on full scholarship; four students have been to the US for a one-year exchange programme. There’s one girl at the Vedica scholar’s programme in Delhi. A carpenter’s son – the father lost a finger and is out of work - is now with the Pearl academy on scholarship. Two students won scholarships to United World College in Phuket.
A student using the microscope in the science laboratory
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The success stories that have emerged from the school – which I hear in bits and pieces in my three visits - in the last decade are both unparalleled and thrilling. The place is imbued with an air of positivity. I fancy that if I stretch my hands, I can catch hope. It’s in the air. Readers who may be feeling low for any reason should actually consider a visit.
His and his wife’s bizarre journey – which he is relating to me at length on my third visit - is both unbelievable and fascinating. After brief stays in Haridwar and Nainital – neither of which the couple liked very much – they found themselves in Purkal district in Uttarakhand. Renting a small, isolated but beautiful house in the jungle, living like hermits (it was before mobile phones so they had agreed to call their three children – all overseas – once a week), the couple was happy cooking and cleaning till they began to get restless. Both needed something more to keep them engaged.
Why Not My Child?
Swamy found a school nearby – John Martyn’s s is a school started by the wife of a former Doon school principal in his memory - where he started to help with teaching English to some of the students who were bright enough to win scholarships through Scholar’s Home.
But one day, 35 local women – who’d seen the results with the children who had been taught – came and requested that the couple should not be partial and should agree to take on their children too.
The duo soon found themselves teaching close to 90 children across four grade levels. Since space at their home was limited, they were working out of nearby cow-sheds. Other than teaching, Swamy would take a backpack and go by bus (they no longer had a car) to buy ingredients (with their own savings) they needed to feed the children who’d come to them always hungry. Chinni would pitch in by making jam (they couldn’t afford to buy it) and produce 100 sandwiches a day.
That’s when a friend from Delhi – Praveen Langham - happened to visit and pointed out that they were running a “mad sort of operation” – close to hundred kids, meagre funds, the couple trying to feed and teach kids across ages in cow sheds. No wonder the couple would fall exhausted at the end of each day, trying to cope! To top it, Swamy had a host of health issues including severe diabetes.
Langham had some funds of her own and she started both financing – and looking for others willing to donate - the effort. Three cooks were hired to make dal, rice and a vegetable for the children. From the cow sheds, they moved to a garage and finally to a building of sorts – rented at a very low rate. Some teachers were hired who helped teach and were paid on a per hour basis. A young boy – Harwant Singh - who had finished his B-comm and was planning to become a chartered accountant joined the team. A former Welhams Girls school chemistry teacher joined in to teach the students chemistry.
By word of mouth, money was raised and the cost of running the whole operation came up to almost Rs 3 lakh a year. Another friend Shanti Jagannathan agreed to finance the education of a few girls.
Lunch in the dining hall
A Roof Over Their Heads
But Swamy knew he needed a more permanent solution. Over the three years or so where he kept adding children to his brood, he’d bought some land from his savings and built a small house for himself. Finally, he found a piece of land that could work for his make shift school. A local was selling a 5 bigha piece of land (in a ditch and without any approach, it was cheap) surrounded by forest and wild greenery for Rs 3 lakh. He put in Rs 50,000 from his own savings (to stop the owner from selling to someone else) but had time to raise the rest of the money while the government approvals were sought.
Approvals took time, Uttarakhand was formed and land prices began to rise. The owner was less than keen to sell to Swamy. He now demanded Rs 5 lakh instead of the initial Rs 3 lakh he had agreed to. Just when he thought all was lost (approvals had come but he didn’t have the money), Swamy received a cheque for Rs 5 lakh from one of the members of music band UB40 from the United Kingdom – a man he’d never met or heard of before.
“You can imagine my shock! Here I was resigning myself to the thought that I couldn’t afford the land and would have to let it go and lo and behold, I receive the money from an unknown source”, adding that life has taught him that “miracles do actually happen”. Brian Travers - he subsequently learnt - was a friend of a friend - who had visited and seen up close Swamy’s efforts - and had decided to donate for the cause – albeit without having seen it for himself. The US dollar amount – Rs 5 lakh - covered the cost of the land. Travers and Swamy remained friends by correspondence for years till Travers wrote one day to say that he and wife had bought a yatch to sail the world and he would no longer be available on phone or email. The two are yet to meet.
While the bigger problem seemed behind him, last minute Swamy learnt that he had to pay another Rs 2 lakh stamp duty, registration and other charges. A friend and exporter from Delhi – Rajeev Joseph – who had visited him around the time had written a cheque to sponsor a child for Rs 30,000. Swamy felt he could tap him for the money. Joseph refused to donate but agreed to give the money on loan with zero interest and payable when able (he never did take it back).
But even after he acquired the land, Swamy had a new problem before him. He needed to complete construction in 12 months; else the land would revert to the government as per the rule.
Eight months went by and Swamy still didn’t have the funds. But again, a miracle rescued him. 35 employees of American company Elan Computing from the UK who happened to be rewarded by their company to spend a week at Ananda had also been given a US $ 1000 each to donate to a good cause. A friend of Swamy’s associated with the company brought the 35 employees to see the land. The land could not be accessed by road but the employees were convinced the money was being put to good use. “It was again like a miracle. From nothing, I suddenly had US $ 35,000! And that’s how this structure you see was built. Let me say money just seemed to materialize from nowhere. Every time it seemed like there was no hope, something happened to give us hope”, says Swamy.
A class XII student preparing for his exams
A Miracle Has Happened
To cut a long story short, what started from a cow-shed now has two buildings with many classrooms, a computer room and two new wings coming up. The art room and artwork would give any Delhi or Mumbai elite school a run for its money.
Chinni has mobilised a self-help group (Purkal Stree Shakti Samiti) of 170-odd women – also housed here – that produce patchwork cushions and bedspreads that are sold at retail shops and at melas through organisations like Dastkar. The women earn a small income through this. Their young children are kept busy through a kindergarten – also housed in the premises – to allow the women to work daily.
A residential wing for students has been built. There are 57 girls and 28 boys in boarding. The school has 51 teachers. Swamy, now 80, has lost none of his zest and is looking for land – and money! – to expand. Pressure on him to add students grows everyday as the stories of success reach further and further in the area. “People keep asking me if I have sports quota. I tell them I have only a girls and a poverty quota!”, says he, adding the poorer the child, the more he wants them. The school has never charged a rupee to date from any student. Uniforms, food, teaching, books, out-station trips twice a year, transport, school bags – everything is free. All students need to do is turn up.
Just as I leave, I meet Harwant – now 36 – and the principal of the school for four years. He tells me the three cooks who started from the shed still cook for the school. It’s been 13 years for all of them but none seem in a hurry to leave. Even as a casual visitor, you don’t feel like leaving PYDS so it’s easy to understand how they feel.