Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel High School

Our school sits right in Karamsad, which is a quiet place in the Anand district. Most people around here know us because we’ve been around for a long time. The building is made of old bricks and doesn't look like much from the outside, but it gets the job done. Every morning, kids arrive on cycles or their parents drop them off on scooters. The bell is quite loud and rings exactly at eight o'clock. We have several classrooms that are mostly filled with wooden benches and old green boards. The teachers usually live nearby and walk to work. We spend our days going through the textbooks and making sure the students are ready for their tests. It gets hot in the afternoons, so the ceiling fans stay on all the time. They make a clicking sound that you eventually stop noticing. Our playground is just a patch of open ground that gets very dusty when it hasn't rained in a while. We don't have any fancy equipment or big trophies on display. It’s just a regular place where people come to learn. The office is small and usually has a stack of old registers on the desk. We know the families in this town and they know us. It feels more like a part of the neighborhood than a big institution. We just keep to our schedule and try to get everything done before the final bell at three.