“Despite the business and auto-rickshaws and bantering Bengalis just beyond his brown front door, Sanjit cultivates a distinct learning environment and energy, one created and galvanized above the tile floors, within the thin walls, below the imperative ceiling fans, and embraced by books.” PhilosophyLife LessonsPoetryValueJournalTeachingsPersonal IdentityPolitical HistoryFind OneselfIndian Education Book:The Local School Source: The Local School
“We proceeded to make way across the mighty Hooghly River, a monstrous offshoot of the Ganges, where we contemplated for a moment, our thoughts seemingly caught in the roaring southward current; there we gazed, toward where the city transitions into mangrove jungle, and somewhere a bit further to the southwest where all the rivers split infinitely like capillaries, where those famous Bengal tigers trod among the sunderbans. Peering in that direction, Bajju gripped the vertical bars just above the horizontal pedestrian railing, breathing slowly and silently, knees locked, still, despite being on arguably the busiest and loudest bridge in the world.” PhilosophyLife LessonsPoetryIdentityFriendshipsTeachingsPersonal IdentityPolitical HistoryFind OneselfUniversal Values Book:The Local School Source: The Local School
“Water is to India as blood is to the body, with the many rivers functioning as arteries – the Ganges being the aorta – and the monsoon timelessly arriving as a much-needed annual blood transfusion.” PhilosophyLife LessonsIdentityFriendshipsTeachingsIdentifyPolitical HistoryFind OneselfUniversal Values Book:The Local School Source: The Local School
“Of course, I couldn’t explain this vector calculus concept and so, slightly embarrassed in front of Rahul and the other Bengali students, I told Sanjit just that; he had cornered me, and honesty emerged as my only option. Simultaneous to my humiliating disclosure of the truth, Sanjit gradually inched toward where I was sitting. After hearing my reply, he slowly returned to his teacher stool and whiteboard, his back turned away from the class, the suspense building and his words impending, before turning around and breaking into speech, “Don’t trust your interior monologue. If you are asked something and you know it, then express or demonstrate it. Don’t just nod or say yes because then you are lying to yourself. Any ass can say yes, but not all asses can express it.” I modified my first impression: Sanjit was full of explicit aphorisms. Humbled, those words encouragingly rang between my ears for quite some time.” PhilosophyLife LessonsPoetryIdentityFriendshipsTeachingsPersonal IdentityPolitical HistoryFind OneselfUniversal Values Book:The Local School Source: The Local School
“After Bajju delivered a few beaming salutations, we walked northward up the makeshift, winding path through protruding brush, not much but a few stones placed here and there for balance and leverage upon ascending or descending. Having advanced about hundred steps from the street below, a sharp left leads to Bajju’s property, which begins with his family’s miniature garden – at the time any signs of fertility were mangled by dried roots which flailed like wheat straw, but within the day Bajju’s children vehemently delivered blows with miniature hoes in preparation for transforming such a plot into a no-longer-neglected vegetable garden. A few steps through the produce, or preferably circumventing all of it by taking a few extra steps around the perimeter, leads to the sky-blue painted home. Twisting left, hundreds of miles of rolling hills and the occasional home peeps out, bound below by demarcated farming steppes. If you’re lucky on a clear day and twist to the right, the monstrous, perpetually snow-capped Chaukhamba mountain monopolizes the distance just fifteen miles toward the direction of Tibet in the north.” Life LessonsPoetryValueJournalTeachingsPersonal IdentityPolitical HistoryFind OneselfIndian EducationPhilosoph Book:The Local School Source: The Local School