Mumbai: The future is bright

Agripada school

Students walk into the brand new classrooms, the benches smell of varnish, a shiny water cooler stands in a corner, and to take in the sunshine, there are large windows. For the first time in 80 years, the students of the Seventh Day Adventist English High School in Agripada won't have to crane their necks to see their teacher thanks to elevated-teaching platforms.

For the last two years, the children were studying in a makeshift school after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) declared their school building unsafe for use. Since November 2022, 700 students from nursery to Class X, would make their way to temporary classrooms set up in Mehfil Hall, a 10-minute-walk from the original site. The coming week will see them return to a brand new structure built by local developer Salim Kodia. "The only work remaining," says vice principal Roosevelt Bulakhi, "is the fixing of grills."

Students will be phased into the new building this week. Pic/Anurag Ahire

Old time residents say that the school is testimony to how residents from varied faiths have coexisted peacefully for almost a century. Khan Abdul Hamid, who has dropped in to check if the school's principal Robinson Undrasi needs help with a meeting he is prepping for with representative from the education department. "You cannot assign a value to this institution and what it means to the neighbourhood. Children from all religions and backgrounds are students here. No matter what is going on outside, here, we eat, sleep and study in peace," Hamid says. This writer, who grew up in the area and studied here, saw Muslim students find refuge in the home of their Christian and Hindu friends during the 1993 Mumbai riots.

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Roosevelt Bulakhi

Parveen Sheikh teaches students of Class IX and X and has been a staffer here for 11 years. An ex-student, she earned an MPhil degree and decided to join when she heard of a vacancy. "It was homecoming for me," she says about the institution that welcomes children from Madanpura, Nagpada, Agripada, Saat Rasta and Jacob Circle. "We don't have irrational prerequisites for admission, like parents need to be educated or that they must furnish proof of their annual income," she adds.

Dhristi J Parmar, Vanshita D Wsagh, Vinod Jaiswar and Solanki Rudra from Saat Rasta

Keeping the financial status of lower middle families, the school slashed its fees by 50 per cent during the COVID-19 years. This was especially helpful for parents who had tiny businesses in Madan Pura's bag market which had shuttered during the lockdown. "I have been a student here since Class I," says Vanshita D Wagh from Saat Rasta. Her friends Dhristi J Parmar, Vinod Jaiswar and Solanki Rudra, studying between Class IX and VIII, are shy but excited to move into the new structure. "This is a big change from the earlier building, which had bits and pieces of its walls and ceiling coming off."

(From Left) Parveen Shaikh studied and now teaches in the school, Alia Jadhav (l) with mother and ex-student Pooja Jadhav

As the second shift begins at 1 pm, toddlers clutching onto to their parents tightly, begin to snake in. Pooja Jadhav, an ex-student from Jacob Circle, drops in to pick up her daughter Alia who studies in Class IX. "I studied here too. When I had her [Alia], I knew that this was where she would study too," says Jadhav. The kids in the corridor greet him with salaam, namaste, and hello. Out on the main road, Maratha Mandir is still screening Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. We are glad that some things from our childhood have not changed.