Rishi Bhandari

It was the summer of 1998 and Ramchandra, founder of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, had gone to pick up his bag from a village in far Terai at the home of one of his   acquaintances. He got his bag and got ready to travel back to Kathmandu in the morning. On the doorstep he saw a frail looking woman in her mid twenties with a five year old boy. As she saw him she said, “Ever since he saw you yesterday evening he has not let me sleep at night, constantly asking me to let him go to Kathmandu with you.” Ramchandra’s eyes opened wide, but he thought to himself, “Well, this kid will certainly run back to his mom.”  He talked to some of the villagers and learned that this woman’s family lived in a cowshed of some other family. Her husband was in India working as a laborer in an iron rolling mill. He would toil in the factory for the day and later spend his time and money drinking. They had two sons and a daughter, and Ramchandra saw that they all were malnourished and underfed.

When it came time to leave, Ramchandra picked up his bag and got ready to leave, the little boy followed him. He smiled and held the boy’s hand; he was ready to let go of the boy’s hand if he wanted to go back to his mom.  The boy followed Ramchandra, didn’t look back, and has never looked back.

Now Rishi is a young man of 22, currently studying biotechnology and also helping the children at the Ashram with their education. He has travelled to Australia, Korea, New Zealand and India to the International Democratic Education Conferences as a representative of the Ashram.  He shares about the Ashram and its children wherever he goes.

Due to the Ashram’s influence, Rishi’s father has been sober for years. He was a man who could hardly live without drinking. He now runs a small shop that has enabled him to patch an almost broken family.

There’s one dream that Rishi wants to live for: to guide young minds towards a life of noble purpose.

Sunil Ghimire

Sunil was 7 years old when he first came to the Ashram. He had lost his mother as a very early age. He was deprived of his father’s love also, as he had been toiling in Indiafor years as a porter. His cousin's brother Ghanashyam, who was suffering from physical deformities, brought Sunil to Kathmandu. Sunil was one of those children who you would take a glance at and feel, “Yes this child needs a family, – a loving family.”

When we saw Sunil for the first time, he was a frail looking child with but very sharp eyes. Sunil embraced the Ashram as a family and he was one of us. The Ashram was growing up and so was Sunil. After finishing his school at the Ashram, the Ashram enrolled him to a mass communication college in Kathmandu, for his bachelors and masters degree in the same time. Sunil was simultaneously learning classical dance, tabla and veterinary medicine.

It has been 19 years since he came to us, and two years since he’s left the Ashram. It pleases our heart when we hear that he’s teaching English to children in a very remote school in Gulmi.  It is in a village school where they previously had teachers who hardly knew the subjects they taught.  We hear that those poor kids are at last getting to learn some English with Sunil

Suramya

She came to the Ashram at the age of 9. Her father had been killed during the Maoist insurgency period and her mom fled with someone.  She lived with her stepmom in the rural village of Mugu.

When one of the villagers, unable to stand the sight of the painful life that she was living, brought her to the Ashram in Kathmandu, the ashram was undergoing through a very difficult time itself. But despite that, the Ashram welcomed her. The traumatic past had taken a toll of her mental and physical strength. We would look into her eyes and see the trauma she had gone through. There was very little we could do other than caring her as a daughter.

We could see from the very beginning that this shy girl who hardly spoke was very interested in dancing. Slowly we had her take part in dance shows that we had organized. We could see that this girl had a great passion for dancing; she loved to dance! With numerous cultural shows that the ashram organized over the years, this girl, along with all the students, has had a wonderful platform to rise and shine.

The little girl is now a young lady of 22, and she is going to India to learn classical dance at one of the most highly respected institutes in India. We can’t wait to have her back with us as a professional dancer, but more than that we can’t wait to have an independent young woman who has put the past behind to pursue her dreams.

By Olivia Loria

I have had the privilege of being a "Granny" for The School in the Cloud program for a year now. I Skype with the same group of girls from the GGSS in Kalkaji, New Delhi weekly or nearly weekly, minus exam days and holidays, which they seem to have many. The girls range in age from 12-14 and have progressed from grade 6 to grade 7 this year. The School in the Cloud website describes their background as lower socio economic with fathers who are daily wagers, typically with an 8th grade education, and mothers who are domestic helpers or housewives, mostly illiterate.

It has been wonderful to watch the girls become more comfortable using English and more comfortable researching various topics on the Internet. Our conversations have ranged from "getting to know you" topics such as favorite activities, family members, favorite school subjects, holiday celebrations in both locations; to brief Hindi lessons for me, a comparison of temperatures in our locations which led to how to convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit and vice versa, to searching for answers to their "big questions." They have asked and researched the answers to big questions which they formulated such as, "Why are trees green?" "Why do onions make you cry when you peel them?" "Why does the earth rotate around the sun?" "How does sea water become saline water?" "How does sea water become drinking water?" "How do earthquakes happen?"

Over the year, we have had to contend with some poor Skype connections. Since I live in a rural area, I can't really say it is all their fault as my connection is not always fantastic. Recently, the connections have been better and we have been able to talk and see each other fairly well.

Rekha Sharma is the delightful facilitator for the program in Kalkaji. She has been the helpful person at the other end of Skype, making sure the connection is working as well as possible, helping the girls understand my American accent and helping me understand their Indian accents, and managing the entire process. She has been especially successful in providing the girls with a nurturing environment in which they have thrived.

I have been impressed with the curiosity, desire to learn, and general knowledge that the girls exhibit. Now, having been an educator for 45 years, I know this is not unusual. Most young people will exhibit curiosity, a desire to learn, and general knowledge given nurturing circumstances. I loved it when they told me about the politics of the recent elections in India. They told me who the candidates were, what political party they represented, and the platform of the party. They knew which candidate they agreed with and why. They excitedly told me about President and Mrs. Obama's visit to New Delhi. When we talked about holidays in December, they knew a lot about Christmas including Christmas carols, which surprised me. They did tell me about a custom that they have in New Delhi where the students obtain the signatures of their teachers on a piece of paper which they then put under their pillow so that all their wishes will be fulfilled. At one point they must have been studying energy conservation because they showed me posters about saving energy that they had created. One night, my granddaughters were spending the night, so they did the session with me. It was fun to see the girls in India interact with two girls in Colorado. They seemed to enjoy sharing a bit about themselves from both sides of the world. All in all the experience of being a "Granny" has been worthwhile and interesting for me. I hope our sessions have been beneficial to the girls. I can only say, I love meeting with my girls every week and miss them when they are on holiday or having exams.