Nilesh...an update

Nilesh...an update...

To me the most interesting thread that ran through this blog that Nishant started three years ago was the story of Nilesh.  I definitely found it easier to connect to Nilesh’s story perhaps because unlike R (who wishes to remain mysteriously anonymous) I am not a big picture person.  To backtrack slightly, Nilesh was the then 11-year-old boy living in a Pune slum who Nishant had attempted to mentor under the guidance of R.  The interaction between Nishant and Nilesh was the coming together of two different worlds that live cheek by jowl in nearly all Indian cities-that of the slums and that of the high-rises.  Perhaps the only space where the two worlds interact is when the slum dwellers enter the world of the haves as maids, drivers and watchmen.  And till his meeting with Nilesh that was the sum total of Nishant’s interaction with the world of slum dwellers...his was an attitude of kind but distant politeness to those who came from the slums to work in his home.

I remember how unsure Nishant was about reaching out and connecting with Nilesh.  Nilesh must have been just as uncertain about connecting with the world that Nishant came from.  All in all it was a rather uneasy coming together of two very different worlds and though an earnest attempt was made by Nishant and Nilesh the connect was a short-lived one for many reasons...one of them being the constraints of time for Nishant only had a few months before he went away on job training.

Over the three years that passed since then, I had intermittently wondered how Nilesh’s story was shaping up.  Nilesh lives with his mother and grandmother in a Pune slum.  There are no siblings in his life.  There is no father in his life.  He would be 14 years old now.  A teenager.  On the cusp of adulthood.  How was he coping?  Well, R brought me up to date.  Nilesh is struggling now with the question of continuing or dropping out of school.  The decision he wishes to make is big with huge implications for his future.   Nilesh considers the pursuit of schooling futile but his mother is just as adamant that she wants him to continue. As of now Nilesh goes to school perhaps on a whim very occasionally.

Is this common to most children living in our city slums?  I think it is.  My experience of children of daily laborers in Kerala, however, is very different for nearly all of them complete their school education. Why is the ground reality of education so different then in the slums of Maharashtra when compared to Kerala? I'll come back to this in a future post.