19th June

It was a fun day, we spent the entire day at the day boarding school. We had also finalised the projects we would be helping NISHTHA with. So, we quickly discussed our ideas and suggestions with Parshuram da and other teachers, and went to try the same in a class. We thought it would be helpful to teach pictorially and with lot of actions, as much as it was possible. We made the standard 6 kids enact the chapter “My family”. We picked up a girl and asked others to volunteer to enact the members of her family. Everybody in the class wanted to be a part of the play! We had to bring in the cow and the cock to provide roles to these budding actors ! The girl briefed everybody about whatever happens in her house in the morning. I translated the sentences these girls wanted to use in the play, a lunch break, and we were all set to watch a 25 minute play performed by the kids in front of the entire school (the play was rehearsed in the lunch break!). It was a stunning performance! The eye to detail was exceptional..the mother(character) milked the cow(character) and took it around the garden !! Well, it was so encouraging to see these girls who could not even say “My name is..” properly an hour ago, actually attempting to enact a play in English. We knew we were on the right track

Btw, Chiruvella Hazrat Rama Krishna Phaneendra was busy working on NISHTHA’s website while Shailee and me were at the school.

That was the highlight of the day - me video recording the entire play on my own, Phani was busy working on the website :)

Me with the kids The girl in yellow is Sushmita, she is the first girl of the class and she enacted the role of the mother :)