Murali Maash went to the remote forests of Edamalakkudy as a teacher. He is still there today, a living legend among the Muthuvan tribals.
***
Of
the many shades of helplessness that dazed him when he first came to
Edamalakkudy, desolation was the strongest. How does one run a school all alone
in an impenetrable forest? How does one teach a people who did not understand
his language?
He
wanted to turn back, return to the world he came from, but a voice from within
led him on. He had to do this. “I studied in a tribal school where I had to
wait for months for a teacher to come. And when they came, they always wanted
to go back as early as they could,” he says. “I did not want to be one such
teacher. But even then I never thought I would still be in the kudy
(tribal settlement) 15 years after coming here.”
In
June 1999, P. K. Muraleedharan—a short, wiry man of the Malayaraya tribe and a
self-confessed devotee of wilderness—was appointed as a District Primary
Education Project (DPEP) volunteer. Then 29, he was assigned the task of
setting up and running a Multi-Grade Learning Centre (MGLC) single teacher
school at Nenmanalkudy, one of the most remote tribal settlements in
Edamalakkudy in northwest Kerala.
A cluster of 28 tribal settlements (two of
which are at present uninhabited) scattered in the 106.19 sq km reserve forest
area between Pettimudi in Munnar, Kerala, and Nallamudi in Valparai, Tamil
Nadu, Edamalakkudy comes under the Munnar Division of the Kerala Forest
Department. The settlements are inhabited exclusively by Muthuvans, a reclusive
tribe zealously loyal to their ancient codes and customs. In 2010, Edamalakkudy
became Kerala’s first tribal gram panchayat. It is also the panchayat with the
least number of voters in Kerala.
To
reach Edamalakkudy, one has to first travel 18 kilometres by jeep from Munnar
to Pettimudi through Iravikulam National Park, and then by foot from Pettimudi
to the various settlements. A road connecting Edalippara—the first of the 28
settlements—and Pettimudi is currently under construction and is expected to be
completed before the onset of the monsoon.
Nenmanalkudy,
the settlement to which Muraleedharan—Murali Maash (Maash is a
Malayalam term of endearment for a teacher), as he is popularly known among the
Muthuvans here—was posted lies near the Tamil Nadu border, almost 35 kilometres
from Pettimudi. It is a kudy considered to be remote by even those
Muthuvans who live within 10 to 20 kilometres from Pettimudi.
Elephants,
bison, wild boar, venomous snakes including king cobras, leeches and other wild
animals lurk as constant threats on the way. Fear is as thick as the forest
here. The path is dizzying: you climb strenuous inclines; slither through rocky
ravines; and cross rickety bridges (including ropeways) over the river
Manalaar, which in the monsoons is an unforgiving spectacle of nature’s rage.
By
the time Muraleedharan reached the kudy, he was drenched in red mud, but
that was not his greatest concern. He had to find a way to make the people in
the kudy understand why he was there.
***
Though there were a couple of single
teacher schools run under the state government’s Integrated Tribal Development
Programme (ITDP) at Edalippara and Parappayarkudy, and a Lower Primary School
at Societykudy—the virtual capital of Edamalakkudy, Societykudy, derives its
name from the Girijan Co-operative Service Society that functions here for the
distribution of ration products—the concept of education had not till then
reached the far-flung settlements. It was in this context that DPEP Kerala
decided to establish single teacher one-room schools here. Of the 446 such MGLCs
set up in remote tribal areas in the districts of Kasargod, Wayanad, Malappuram
and Idukki, 13 were at Edamalakkudy. (Muraleedharan’s wife, who died seven
years ago, was also appointed to run one of these schools at Irippukalkudy, a
settlement around five kilometres from Nenmanalkudy.)
The
teachers—they are officially designated as volunteers—were paid `750
per month in the first five years of the project after which the salary was
raised to `3,000.
(The kitchen staff in charge of the noon meal scheme is paid `200
per day. However, in Edamalakkudy, noon feeding too is the responsibility of
the teacher who runs the school.)
“When
I reached Nenmanalkudy, my first challenge was to make the people realise what
my task was,” says Muraleedharan. “I did not understand their language, nor did
they mine.”
With
great effort and after long hours of sign language communication, he finally
managed to convey his objective to Mayilsami, Nenmanalkudy’s thalaivar—the
headman of the settlement. The thalaivar then made arrangements to
convert a tiny, ramshackle shed of twigs and mud for storing paddy into a
school. He also made sure that 18 children in the age group of five to 15 were
brought to this school as students.
“I
was lucky Mayilsami had some knowledge of the outside world. Had it not been
for him, I would have had to go back.”
***
It took a further couple of months for
Muraleedharan to introduce the idea of education and school to his students.
Since the education department had not provided him with any teaching or
learning materials, he had to devise his own methods. It turned out to be a
blessing in disguise as the process helped him to establish a personal bond
with the students. Instead of confining himself to the school, he chose to be
led by his students into the wild, a decision prompted as much by the
pragmatism of a resolute teacher as by the compulsion of circumstances.
“Once
I got the space for school, and the students to teach, my initial fears were to
a great extent put to rest. I was now determined to make this project a success
and for that I knew I first had to earn their acceptance. I went fishing with
them and joined them in their games: grabbing crabs, trapping birds and rabbits
and roasting them. That way, I learnt the fundamentals of their language which
helped me communicate better.
“In
between, I tried to teach them the importance of hygiene. They seldom changed
their clothes or bathed; the stink was awful. In fact, they were walking,
talking nests of lice and flea. I told them that the first lesson was
cleanliness; soon they started following my instructions to the core.”
During
those days, he used to stay with his wife in a makeshift room attached to the
school she was in charge of at Irippukalkudy. She had similar stories to share,
and together they would discuss and design ways to make their schools a second
home to the students. They realised early that to be successful they needed to
embrace the culture of Edamalakkudy—including its food habits—and try in every
possible way to be one among the Muthuvans. “It was not actually a very
difficult thing to do,” Muraleedharan says with a smile. “To survive, we had no
other option.”
He
also had to confront the hurdles posed by the migratory nature of Muthuvan
settlements. One day when he reached the kudy after a weekend, he found
that it was deserted; only the huts remained. “They had moved to
Vazhakuthukudy, a higher region where the soil was more conducive to farming. I
now had to start all over again, right from locating the new kudy.”
(Years later, they returned to the original site when Vazhakuthukudy was
ravaged by wild elephants.)
Despite
the struggles, Muraleedharan now remembers those days as some of the most
gratifying of his life. “Once I found the way to the new kudy things
were a lot easier. I went from door to door and managed to get 48 students—from
four-year-olds to 18-year-olds—enrolled. People were more welcoming, and the
students, instead of viewing the school as something thrust upon them, started
showing a keen interest in studying. They found it a very enjoyable activity.”
Soon
he was regarded not just as a teacher from the outside world, but as one of
their own. “Murali Maash could have very easily stayed in the school
room with two or three students. Or he could have chosen to come to the kudy
once in a while. No one would have questioned or blamed him,” says Sivadas
Balan, a student of the first batch. “But for his single-minded, selfless
efforts, people like me would never have known what a school is like.”
Sivadas
was the last of the 48 students to enrol. He was reluctant even when everyone
else in the kudy had joined. But eventually Muraleedharan won him over
through a musical procession conducted as part of a language class that dealt
with festivals. He had instructed his students to pass through places where
Sivadas was likely to be present.
“All
my friends had gone to the school and I was feeling very lonely. But I was
still afraid of school. Then, one day I saw my friends moving like a procession
through the kudy: singing, whistling and dancing, blowing pipes and
horns. One of them told me that this was part of the class and I thought, if
school was so pleasurable, why should I alone stay back?”
***
The first Muthuvan settlers of
Edamalakkudy arrived in 1952. They were a group of seven who had come from
Chengulam in search of a new, isolated habitat because a dam that was being
constructed at Chengulam was perceived as a threat to the exclusivity of their
social order. Later, their families and relatives joined them, and in time
subsequent generations spread out into various settlements.
Each
kudy has two elected officials—thalaivar and kani. The thalaivar
deals with matters of administration while the kani deals with
intra-community matters. There are 2,886 Muthuvans living in 730 houses at
present, in 26 settlements.
Spread
out in Idukki, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts of Kerala, and Coimbatore and
Tirupur districts of Tamil Nadu, Muthuvans trace their early history to the
Tamil epic Silappathikaram. According to the legend, when Kannagi set
fire to Madurai, a petrified section of the dynasty’s loyal subjects fled the
kingdom and moved west into the forests across the borders of modern-day
Kerala. It is believed that during this migration, they carried on their backs
the idols of the golden Madurai Meenakshi, and therefore the Pandya rulers
named them Muthuvans which means “hump backed”—Muthuvan women still carry their
children on their backs in folds of cloth.
An
alternate version of the myth says that it was Kannagi, and not Madurai
Meenakshi, whom they carried; a more sophisticated rationalisation interprets
Kannagi and Madurai Meenakshi as the same deity. Yet another version of the
same myth frees their backs of the divine ladies, and replaces it with the
burden of the dethroned king. An altogether different myth describes them as
the guards of Sita during Rama’s years
in the forest.
in the forest.
In
course of time, the migrants branched out into 21 clans and settled in various
parts in the Western Ghats. The descendents of those who settled in Kerala are
called Malayali Muthuvans or Naadan Muthuvans, while those who settled in Tamil
Nadu call themselves Tamil Muthuvans or Pandi Muthuvans. Although their customs
remain the same, they can be distinguished through their dialects.
The
Raja of Poonjar, an erstwhile princely state, recognised them as subjects and
granted them consent to establish settlements in the forests. They speak both
Malayalam and Tamil, but their mother tongue is a tribal Dravidian language
that bears the name of their tribe. The patois is a debased form of Tamil.
The
settlements usually consist of 10 to 40 families with their huts bunched
together. The traditional two-room huts are constructed with bamboo, reed,
forest wood and mud. The walls of the huts are made by first arranging the
bamboo and reed in rows and columns which are then held together and buttressed
by a thick paste of mud and clay. The roofs are thatched with bamboo leaves.
Fences and trenches are built to protect the houses from wild animals.
Every
settlement has exclusive sleeping huts for boys and girls where they have to
spend the nights from when they are nine or 10 years old till the time they get
married. These bachelor dormitories are considered to be emblematic of the
emphasis Muthuvans place on community life. The sleeping hut for the girls is
called thinnaveedu or kumari madam while the one for boys is
called sathram or chavadi. Old men and women too sleep with the
boys and girls while couples stay and sleep in their own huts. Visitors are
given space to sleep in either the thinnaveedu or the sathram.
Menstruating and pregnant women have to stay alone in a separate hut called valappura
which is isolated from the rest of the kudy.
Traditionally
farmers and gatherers of forest resources, Muthuvans cultivate cardamom, ragi,
plantain, rice, tapioca, maize, sweet potato and lemongrass. But a mix of
factors—regular destruction of crops by wild animal raids, decline in soil
fertility, a system of farming that is entirely organic, and the absence of a
viable marketing and distribution system—has led to a sizeable drop in
productivity. This, in turn, has led to their migration to other areas like
Adimali and Mankulam that are more connected with the mainstream world, and
where they don’t have to suffer from the exploitation of middlemen.
Those
who have stayed back now prefer community farming. “A sense of collective
responsibility helps us to minimise the damage,” says Murukan, a cardamom farmer.
“We make sheds on treetops and stay through the night to protect our crops.”
Kudumbashree
units too are now active in community farming. (One of the largest
woman-empowering projects in the country, Kudumbashree was launched by the
Kerala government in 1998 to wipe out absolute poverty from the state through
concerted community action.) Ramani Arjunan, the chairperson of Edamalakkudy
Community Development Society (CDS), a fraternity of Kudumbashree units,
proudly says that the 34 CDS units functioning in the farming sector
have—against all odds and against even the expectations of their own
men—managed to earn more than `4
lakh. “We can do even better if we have a proper marketing system in place. For
that, we first need to have a road at least till Societykudy.”
The
road that is now being built from Pettimudi to Edalippara is viewed by the
people with great expectations. Once it becomes fit for jeep traffic, they hope
that they can finally buy the rice provided under the public distribution system
at `1
per kg, the price at which it is supposed to be sold. At present, they have to
buy it at `11
per kg because `10
has to be paid for transporting a kilogram of any commodity on head from
Pettimudi to the Girijan Consumer Society.
“We
are not asking for a situation where everyone can come to the forest, mess with
our culture and loot the resources of our forest. What we want is a jeep track
where entry is strictly restricted,” says Ramani.
They
also hope that the road will provide relief when they have to take someone to
hospital. Though there is a primary health centre at Edamalakkudy, it does not
have a doctor. So they have to carry the patient on a cot made of bamboo and
walk for hours through the forest: a sad, farcical re-enactment of the myth to
which their history is traced. However, having suffered these privations for so
long, they are now almost inured to their plight, which is a subject of black
humour.
Sample
this: “A group of eight is carrying an old man who has high fever. First a snake
kills two, and then an elephant kills the remaining six. But the old man is
still alive and he still suffers from high fever. Who will now take him to the
hospital?”
***
The state government’s decision to
convert Edamalakkudy into a tribal panchayat was taken to find solutions to the
development problems that blight Edamalakkudy on account of its isolation.
Ironically, the panchayat has only served to compound the problems. Since
Edamalakkudy does not have power supply, and since there is no road to it, the
panchayat office at Societykudy is now an abandoned building.
Instead,
the office functions at Devikulam, about 48 kilometres from Edamalakkudy. Prior
to the formation of the panchayat, it was the first ward of Munnar panchayat,
which was just 22 kilometres away.
Kaniyamma
Sreerangan, the president of the panchayat, is the only illiterate gram
panchayat president in the state. A head-load worker, she insists that she will
be literate by the time her tenure comes to an end; as a first step she now has
a signature of her own which she puts on the government files with great pride.
But she is not sure if she will ever come to terms with the whims and quirks of
the bureaucratic Malayalam she has to deal with.
According
to Muraleedharan, who translated Panchayat Raj rules into Muthuvan for
Kaniyamma and other panchayat members, the chasm in communication between
elected panchayat representatives and the panchayat bureaucracy has reduced the
self-governance experiment to a sorry absurdity.
“It
is almost as if the officials mock these members with their prim and proper
Malayalam. The members are in no position to explain and communicate their
ideas, which means nothing ever happens at Edamalakkudy. `5
crore was allotted when the panchayat came into existence. But since the
panchayat failed to submit a project plan, the amount lapsed,” he says.
“The
training classes organised by Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA)
also matter little to these members. They go there and attend the classes, not
having a clue about what is going on.”
In
2013, P. K. Jayalakshmi, the Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Tribes,
announced a special package of `10.35
crore for Edamalakkudy. But the task of implementing the projects under this
package—including the road that is now being constructed—was given to the
forest department, not with the panchayat.
***
In the realm of ostensible theory,
Muthuvans follow a matrilineal clan system, but in the domain of everyday
practices, the society is patriarchal and male-dominated: even now, most
Muthuvan women walk away briskly with bowed heads at the sight of other men.
Theirs is a social structure steeped in a non-negotiable ideology of cultural
elitism. They consider themselves to be superior in race and caste to others,
and any member of the tribe who violates the prescribed code of conduct—for
instance, marrying outside the tribe—is promptly cast out.
This
obsessive adherence to tradition is often cited by both the younger generation
and teachers like Muraleedharan as the biggest deterrent to the advancement of
modern education in Edamalakkudy.
“Everyone
told me to get educated. But once I come back from my school in the town, I
have to forget everything I learnt. I will even have to change from my churidar
to the traditional attire of the kudy and arrange my hair in the
conventional way (the hair is rolled up, tied tight and decorated with a bush
and ribbon) from the moment I start walking to the kudy from Pettimudi,”
says a 20-year-old woman who requested anonymity. She has passed Class 12 from
a school in Munnar, but is now readying herself for the chores of a married
life to be spent in unquestioning servitude to household duties. “The only
practical use I have had by studying till twelfth standard is that, unlike most
other girls here, I did not have to get married when I was 14 or 15.”
Vijaya
Lakshmi is her teacher and has been in charge of the ITDP-run single teacher
school at Edalippara from 1997. With Muraleedharan, she is revered by the
people of Edamalakkudy for their selfless commitment to their jobs. “Many of my
students,” she says, “both boys and girls, have gone out from the kudy to
pursue higher education. But when they are in the kudy, they have no
option but to follow the customs. And nobody, not even those who are educated,
wants to go out and seek a life elsewhere. They are all habituated to the way
of life here. I always wish that one day one of them comes back wearing a churidar,
or sporting a new hairstyle. But the system here is so rigid and so entrenched
that one cannot really blame them for not showing the spunk to defy the norms.
I myself have not done so in all these years that I have been here.”
But
Vijaya Lakshmi has not yet given up hope. “It may take time, but eventually the
system will have to yield. That is what education does. After all these years
here, I can say with conviction that change is already under way, more so from
a woman’s perspective.”
That
keeps her going; that motivates her to stay in the kudy with her
students for months on end, forfeiting the comforts of the “outside world” and
her own family. Hers is the most successful school in Edamalakkudy with more
than a dozen of her students having passed plus two, and a couple now pursuing
graduation.
And
yet, for all her efforts and for all her unflagging optimism, the future she so
longs for might never arrive—the tribe might soon be wiped out from
Edamalakkudy. Their population has been declining at an alarming rate in the
last 20 years, a phenomenon ascribed to the excessive consumption of oral
contraceptive pills by both married and unmarried women to prevent
menstruation.
It
is the fear of living in a valappura during the menstrual period and
pregnancy that makes women take the oral contraceptives. Isolated from the kudy,
valappuras are devoid of even the most basic amenities. “It is a
nightmare for the girls and women here. They have to stay all alone in that dingy
shed, and since the valappura is usually far away from the kudy,
there’s no one to help even if they are attacked by wild animals,” says Vijaya
Lakshmi. The few women who do conceive usually end up with an abortion. “Either
steps should be taken to abolish the system, or the government should build valappuras
that are safe and have facilities.”
It
is the second option that seems to have found favour, with the government
announcing the construction of 10 secure valappuras. A couple have
already been built.
Mala-D,
the oral contraceptive to which the women of Edamalakkudy are almost addicted
now, was introduced by the health department two decades ago for promoting
birth control: those were days when each family had nine or 10 children. Now,
the same department is campaigning hard to tell women about the consequences of
unchecked use. But the impact has been minimal because the women on the pill
are perfectly aware of the consequences. If they still consume them, it is
because the dread of a community’s prospective death stands no chance against
the horrors of spending a night all alone in a valappura.
The
health department has now stopped the supply of pills through its primary
health centres. But they are available at medical shops in Valparai. There also
exists a racket that makes reasonable profit from buying the pills in bulk from
Valparai and selling it to women here at rates much higher than the market
price.
Many,
including women, in the kudy, however, feel it’s not the custom that
needs to be blamed, but the way it is practised. According to Ramani Arjunan,
chairperson of CDS, effective awareness campaigns and provision of better
facilities at valappuras are sufficient to deal with the menace.
“Every
tribe is defined by unique customs. If our tradition is taken away from us, it
is as good as killing us,” she says, and adds that Kudumbashree has been
actively endorsing and conducting awareness campaigns. “If the valappura
is the reason for these women to take the pills, then why have they not stopped
using it even after the government built new valappuras? The women are
now addicted to Mala-D. We need to make them aware of the fact they are
addicted, and then find ways to reverse this addiction.”
A
world from which children are fast disappearing has had its obvious, and most
profound, impact on the schools to which those children once flocked with joy.
If Muraleedharan had 48 students at Vazhakuthukudy 15 years ago, he now has
four at Olakkayam, the kudy where he now runs his school. The Edamalakkudy
Government Lower Primary school at Societykudy has five teachers and four
students.
***
In 1997, the District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP), a controversial World Bank funded project—premised on
learning from lived experience and not classrooms—set up MGLC single teacher
schools at remote tribal colonies in Kerala as an experiment. Its objective was
to bring education home to children who had to travel long distances through
deep forest to reach the nearest school, if they went ever.
After
much deliberation, the system of schooling in the Rishi Valley Institute for
Educational Resource (RIVER), Andhra Pradesh, was adopted as the model. As per
this model, children in the age group of five to 15 sit together in the same
class. The curriculum transaction is effected through Self Learning Materials
(SLM) in the form of cards. The cards are marked with symbols that indicate
whether they belong to language, mathematics or environment studies. They are
classified under four heads in accordance with the learning proficiency of the
students—cards requiring full support from the teacher; those requiring partial
support; those that can be learnt through peer group support; and those meant
for evaluation. There are also cards set apart exclusively for drawing, miming,
acting, puppetry and manual activities.
The
underlying idea of the MGLC project is to introduce a culture of active
learning, not active teaching, in classrooms. The teacher is a facilitator;
children themselves engage in the learning process, selecting the learning card
commensurate with their level of perception. They carry out a process of
self-evaluation based on a learning ladder each rung of which is marked with a
learning card symbol. All they have to do is to identify the card that
corresponds with their learning level and choose the same from a variety of
cards arranged in a proper form in the MGLC.
Both
teachers and students vouch for the model’s efficiency.
“It
encourages students to seek and learn on their own,” says Muraleedharan. “Most
importantly, it takes away the fear. In tribal areas, the most difficult
challenge for a teacher lies in convincing students about the significance of
education. What am I supposed to say if a student asks me why he or she should
study these textbooks? Card system ensures that this fear of textbooks is
eliminated totally.”
Sivadas,
Muraleedharan’s student from the batch of 1999, agrees. “If I had to go to
school to study big textbooks, I would never have gone. But learning through
cards was fun. We never felt it a burden. We even enjoyed taking examinations.”
To
further vindicate his argument, Muraleedharan refers to the failure of
Edamalakkudy Government Lower Primary (LP) School. It started in the late
Seventies as a residential school, but was shut down following complaints about
beef—proscribed by religious norms, beef is anathema to Muthuvans—being served
in the hostels. In the Nineties, it was revived, but teachers who were posted
seldom stayed on. There have been instances when a headmaster drew salary for a
whole academic year without once coming to school. But even when teachers are
present, as they now are, children are reluctant.
“Conventional
schooling will not work in tribal areas,” says Muraleedharan. “That is a system
designed for a society whose cultural dynamics are entirely different. Tribal
areas need models that are in sync with the way of life in the forest.”
Muraleedharan’s
argument cuts no ice with M. D. Princemon, the present headmaster, who thinks
it is the mindset of people that has to change not the system of schooling.
According to him, the idea of a distinct primary education model for tribal
areas is damaging in the long run as it will only serve to estrange tribal
students from higher education.
“What
is required is an effort to change the mindset; to let them realise the
importance of education. Along with educating the children, it is as, if not
more, important to create awareness among their parents too. If the card system
is so great, why have most of these students not continued with higher
education?”
It
is a question that vexes Muraleedharan. Every year, he takes his students to
schools at Adimali or Munnar for upper primary education, but few go beyond
seventh standard. He attributes it to the difficulty they face in arriving at
an accommodation with the ways of a world that is alien to them. “In a way it
is the price they have to pay for the exclusivity they so dearly preserve. It
is very difficult for students from the kudy to survive even in tribal
schools. All want to come back, even if it is a life of hardship that awaits
them here.”
Of
the 28 students in the LP school, only four attend regularly. Every morning,
teachers run helter-skelter after Ramaswamy, the only child in Societykudy, and
on most days they fail to catch him. An expert crab-fisher and hen-catcher,
Ramaswamy slinks into the forest and disappears with effortless ease.
Ironically,
the school, in effect, now functions as an MGLC: all four students sit in the
same room though they belong to different classes. The sight of four teachers
teaching four students in one classroom makes for surreal viewing.
According
to Princemon, the school needs to be converted into a residential school to
attract more students. It is not reasonable, he says, to expect students to
walk long distances through dense forest. “A hostel will provide accommodation
to teachers too.” At present, they stay in the school, converting the
classrooms into living spaces once the students leave.
“If
in the night we want to piss, all we can do is hold back. It might be to a wild
elephant or a bison that we open the door”, says Gokul Raj, one of the
teachers, with a helpless smile.
***
In spite of its success, the card system
was abandoned in 2010 with the Right to Education (RTE) Act. When DPEP was
scrapped in 2003, MGLC schools were brought under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
(SSA) which continued to run the project with the ideals originally envisaged.
With
RTE, MGLCs were transferred from SSA to the Directorate of Public Instruction
(DPI). Instead of cards, books returned, jeopardising the very existence of
single teacher schools. “How can one teacher teach different books at the same
time?” asks Muraleedharan.
An
LP school within one kilometre and a UP school within three kilometres of a
student is one of the most significant provisions of the RTE Act. To fulfil
this, the government has decided to upgrade MGLC centres to LP schools;
according to a recent order, 111 of the 320 functional single teacher schools
will be upgraded this year, leaving the future of teachers at these centres
uncertain. Two of those schools are in Edamalakkudy.
Sheeja
P. V., in charge of the school at Vellavarakudy, one of the upgraded MGLC
centres, doesn’t know what to do if she loses her job. “All these years, we
have been working in the hope that one day we will be given permanent jobs.
What we get is just `3,000.
We have never complained about anything. We live in the same hut where we have
to run the school, and every day we spend here, we live in fear of elephants
and snakes. (Lisy Joseph, the teacher in charge of the centre at Kunjppara,
Idukki, was killed by an elephant in 2012.) What can we do if one day if are
asked to leave just like that? Doesn’t the service we provide matter one bit?
Doesn’t it matter that we took education into this forest at a time when no one
wanted to come here? ”
The
people of Edamalakkudy, however, are not too concerned. According to them, save
for Vijaya Lakshmi and Muraleedharan, the other teachers fall short of the
standard. They appreciate the plight of the teachers and their hardships, but
are unwilling to accept them wholeheartedly. “They come here, stay five or six
days, and go back. But if some official inspection is there, they all will be
present. That’s not how Vijaya Lakshmi teacher and Murali Maash work.
They are here throughout,” says Thangappan of Kavakkattukudy.
The
constant comparison with Muraleedharan and Vijaya Lakshmi hurts Sheeja; she
wonders if the true gravity of a crisis can ever be understood if the
perspective chosen frames only the response of certain extraordinary
characters. “True, we might not be here throughout like Murali Maash or
Vijaya Lakshmi teacher. They are truly great people. But that does not mean we
are shirkers. We do what we can. But with a salary of just `3,000,
how can you expect us to live here, cut off from family? Are we not entitled to
a normal life?”
Neither
Muraleedharan nor Vijaya Lakshmi is willing to buy that line, preferring
instead an altruistic worldview. “This is what we have been assigned to do.
It’s not as if we were told we would be paid `20,000,”
says Muraleedharan. “So I don’t see any point in cringing about the pay now. If
you do not want to do the job, leave it. But if you want the job, do it
properly.”
Neither
is active in the Alternate School Teachers Association (ASTA), a union that
works for the rights of MGLC school teachers. ASTA, according to Lisy
Joseph—the association’s secretary who runs an MGLC centre at Manippara,
Idukki—is now preparing to go all out to get its demands sanctioned: permanent
jobs in LP schools for teachers whose centres are being upgraded, and an
increase in salary for those who continue to run the centres.
Though
enthusiastic, she admits victory is unlikely. “It’s not as if we are an
influential vote bank. What happens to us does not matter to the political
class.”
***
The most famous man to run a single
teacher school in Kerala is a fictional character. For Ravi, the protagonist of
O. V. Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Ithihasam (The Legends of Khasakh)—one of
the greatest modern Malayalam novels that spawned a generation of pretenders
who mimicked its ethereal style—the bucolic hamlet of Khasakh where he sets up
his school was a last refuge from the existential guilt inflicted upon him by
ideological alienations of many kinds: the middle class debauchery of
post-Independence urban modernity; the self-perpetuating crises of Marxism; and
the hollow salvations of a hip
Hindu spirituality.
Hindu spirituality.
Muraleedharan,
a voracious reader, has never gone beyond two chapters of Khasakkinte
Ithihasam. “I could never connect with such a state of mind,” he says. His
vocation is not an escape from life, nor is the misery he is surrounded with a
ruse for slipping into a pall of metaphysical angst. Life, he says, is
complicated only when complications are a luxury one can afford.
“I
have two options: one, I can go on blaming my fate; two, I can do something
that can make life a little better for me and those around me.” And such is his
loyalty to the latter option that not even the solitude his wife’s early death
consigned him to dampened his morale.
Radhamani
Muraleedharan, once his love, then his wife, and now his “eternal companion”,
died seven years ago, three weeks after their second child was born. He was in
the kudy when she was admitted to hospital, and it was only after a week
that he got the news. She breathed her last hours after he reached hospital.
Even
after all these years, Muraleedharan seldom sits idle. After school, he roams
around the forest, walking from one kudy to another, chatting with those
he meets on the way; sometimes sharing a beedi; sometimes taking a dip
in the river with them. “It’s not as if I have made a sacrifice for these
people. I wouldn’t have stayed here if there wasn’t something that enriched me
infinitely; something that gave meaning to my existence. If I go away from the kudy,
I will always have to live with a void inside me.”
Wherever
he goes he is offered a place to stay; even the women of Edamalakkudy, who are
reticent in communicating with people from outside, share jokes and personal
problems with him, as with an intimate family member. He helps people fill
forms they have to submit at various offices, and informs them about new
schemes and projects coming up. “These days, there are so many cards one should
possess. So that too keeps me busy. Besides, most people are unaware of the
various schemes—distribution of solar panels, or farming subsidies, or various
forest department projects. Officials loot a lot of money that way by fooling
these people.”
Of
all the places in Edamalakkudy, Muraleedharan’s favourite destination is
Chinnathampy’s tea shop at Irippukalkudy. A small mud hut on the edge of a
cliff from that gives you a panoramic view of the settlements in Tamil Nadu,
this is no ordinary tea shop.
A
worn paper board on its fissured front wall reads: “Akshara Arts and Sports
Club, with Library and Reading Room, Irippukalkudy, Edamalakkudy”. It is a
library, but there are no dusty racks or long corridors. The books, around 160
of them, are stacked in two rice sacks. On days when the library functions,
Chinnathampy, the 73-year-old librarian, places a mat on the floor and arranges
the books on it.
From
the works of great writers like Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, M. T. Vasudevan Nair,
Zachariah, V. K. N., and Madhavikkuty, to the political books of Thoppil Bhasi
and Dalitbandhu, and from Silappatikaram to books on psychoanalysis and
black magic, it is a weighty collection.
Chinnathampy
maintains a register that keeps a record of the books taken, the persons who
have taken them, and the dates on which they were taken and returned.
Thirty-seven books were taken in 2013. Membership costs `25,
and the monthly fee `2.
A glass of strong theyila—black tea without sugar—comes for free.
Chinnathampy
and Muraleedharan are soul mates. Despite the 29 years that separate them in
age, theirs is a frolicsome comradeship. Like two teenage buddies, 44-year-old
Muraleedharan and 73-year-old Chinnathampy rib each other, share their sorrows,
and conjure up great dreams together.
The
library is a culmination of one such dream. Muraleedharan had pitched the
proposal of a library to the panchayat many years ago. After a long wait he
realised that it was pointless to expect the panchayat to take the initiative,
and decided to set up a library on his own. When he suggested the idea to
Chinnathampy, he offered his tea shop, and thus was the library born.
The
present collection is made up of books from Muraleedharan’s personal
collection, and the ones his friends give him. Both Muraleedharan and
Chinnathampy are hopeful that the panchayat will at least now take up
responsibility and transform the library into a bigger institution with better
facilities. “People here want to read. Of course, they take a much longer time
than readers elsewhere. But even if it takes three or four months, those who
take the books do read them,” says Chinnathampy.
For
the last few years, Muraleedharan has been working relentlessly on his other
big dream: to develop a script for Muthuvan language. At present, Malayalam or
Tamil is used, but neither, according to him, is sufficient to capture the
peculiar nuances of the language. “The language is not Malayalam or Tamil, but
a mix of the two with a lot of unique characteristics of its own. It needs its
own script. Otherwise, the language too might die.”
After
years of research on languages and their scripts, he has succeeded in drafting
a rudimentary version which he hopes to fine tune. A regular diarist,
Muraleedharan now pens his entries using this script. He also makes it a point
to teach it to people of the kudy. Around 30, including Chinnathampy,
can now follow the script. A poster on the inner walls of Chinnathampy’s tea
shop has the details of Edamalakkudy panchayat described using it.
“Isn’t
literacy all about knowing how to read and write one’s own language?”
Muraleedharan asks. And once they learn to read and write their own language,
he hopes to see Chinnathampy’s library filled with Muthuvan books, for there
are countless stories waiting to be told, countless dreams waiting to be written.
***
