Happiness & Pride

Ben Lerner

A few days ago, while on a day out with some of the Jungle crow boys, we ended up in their neighbourhood, the name of which I am unsure about. We went to their old primary school, another random primary school and ended up in one of the boys' house. 

House is an exaggeration. It was around half the size of my bedroom, 4 people living in it. People always speak of these 'houses half the size of their bedroom' but you don't fully understand it until a proud Kolkatan takes you in and attempts to 'show you around'. There was so much I didn't understand; how they all slept on a bed the size of one I sleep on alone, how they have space to make and eat food, how they all managed to maintain such bright smiles when a photo of their late husband/father lay staring down on them on the wall. They were all so proud and happy, and their attitude caused all of us (George, Miller, Cam and myself) to seriously re-evaluate how lucky we really are in life. 

The primary school which they formerly attended was run by a man called Lawrence with a dream to provide a free education to all the severely under privileged children in the neighbourhood. You could see his passion for this vision, and his face lit up every time he got the chance to tell us about the work being done. The classrooms were so small and beaten down, however we again witnessed how proud and happy this headmaster was. He didn't dwell on the paint peeling off the near crumbling walls, instead he focused on beautiful drawings his students drew covering the inadequacies. 

An image that stuck with me that day was in another school we went to, down a very small alley. It was unbelievable to think that a school was down there. When we arrived we were greeted by two stray dogs. This instantly took me back to my primary school education; pristine grounds, large fields, clean air. These kidps were surrounded by stray dogs, in a tiny back alley, in a concrete, prison-like building, yet again they were happy and proud as they showed us their geography project on New Zealand and showed us the rest of the school.  

What I learned from that day is no matter how little of something you have, no matter how inadequate others may view it, and no matter that others may have it better, you can always take pride and be happy in something. This is something apparent all over Kolkata, and something I admire.