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Unusual setting for a noble cause

It’s 4.30 pm and some children in a jubilant mood, in small groups, are seen entering the cremation ground at Manmohan Nagar in Ambala City with bags on their shoulders. Well! This is not a place for children to be.

Unusual setting for a noble cause

Children study in a room at the cremation ground in Ambala City. Photo: Dev Dutt Sharma



Nitish Sharma

It’s 4.30 pm and some children in a jubilant mood, in small groups, are seen entering the cremation ground at Manmohan Nagar in Ambala City with bags on their shoulders. Well! This is not a place for children to be. But a retired lecturer of Polytechnic College of Ambala City is giving lessons of life to children in a room at the cremation ground for the last nearly nine years.

Satish Kumar Pruthi (71), in association with NGO Sewa Bharati, is running the study centre since 2009. He retired as head of mechanical department of Polytechnic College in 2004. He had also served as principal of a private diploma institute for some time.   

Children after school hours come to the study centre in the evening for doing their homework. Besides helping them with their homework, these children are also given moral education, and taught yoga, Bhojan mantra and other prayers. Muslim girls are also coming to the centre and children volunteer to showcase their skills and lead others.  

Simran, a Class V student, is coming to the centre for the last three years. She wants to become a teacher. Anjali, a student of Class VI, wants to join the Indian Army, while her classmates Naina and Seema want to become policewomen. Earlier children were scared of entering the cremation ground but now they are comfortable here.

Pruthi says initially the centre was started in a temple but due to lack of sufficient space there, it was shifted to the present room constructed at the cremation ground, near its entrance. Initially, people were hesitant to send their children to the centre and even teachers were not ready to come. But we managed to persuade them and now children come to the centre daily. We close the door of the room for some time whenever a body is brought for cremation.

These children go to a government school at Sultanpur and Pruthi has arranged two auto-rickshaws for them. Transportation costs Rs 500 per child and the Sewa Bharati contributes Rs 300 while parents give Rs 200.

Pruthi and his team (teachers and volunteers of Sewa Bharati) keep contact with the parents of these children and other people in their colonies. Besides teaching these children free of cost, they educate their parents about government schemes and other facilities. They also keep track of every child who comes to the centre and ensure that they live a healthy life.

Pruthi and his team’s active involvement has started yielding results. Poor people did not send their daughters to school after Class V, as they thought that they would find it difficult to marry them off if they are better educated. But this year four girls from poor families have taken admission to Class VI. These children are scoring good marks.

Pruthi says that the centre was basically set up for poor children but later other children also started coming here. Besides, they also organise beautician and tailoring courses for young girls to make them self-reliant.

Recently, the Haryana Kala Parishad organised a bhajan workshop at the centre and everyone was impressed with the skills of the children.

Besides study material, the Sewa Bharati sometimes arranges clothes for these children from people and other NGOs. Shailesh Deewan, secretary of Sewa Bharati, says the NGO raises funds for these children and efforts are made to provide all possible help to them.

Jayant Gupta, a retired professor, is contributing to the cause by giving tuition and donating all the money thus earned to the Sewa Bharati.

Besides this centre, Pruthi and his team are running two more such centres in Ambala. The first centre was started at Nahan Basti in 1989 and it continued till 1995. Another centre was started at Deha Basti in 1993 and it is still operational. Yet another centre was started in Manmohan Nagar part-II in 2012.

Nearly 150 children from four to 16 years of age attend classes at these centres. Besides Pruthi, Ashwini, Banarsi Lal and Master Kasturi Lal play important roles in running these centres. When they started running these centres, they noticed that children drop out of schools as the parents of most of them were illiterate and least interested in their education.

To encourage these children, people now celebrate their birthdays at the centre at the cremation ground. They also give study material and clothes to these children.

Pruthi says, “Our strong belief is that if a child’s basics are right, he or she will study better. An educated society can change the world. These children have a tendency to drop out of school as their parents are illiterate. A large number of children, who earlier used to pick rags, are doing different jobs, including flower decoration and working with caterers”.

“It gives a good feeling when you see your student doing a respectable job. Recently, a Home Guard jawan saluted me in a market of Ambala City. When I failed to recognise him, he told me that he was a student of our Deha Basti study centre. Another student of that locality is now a police constable,” says Pruthi.

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