Orissa Briged School

Orissa Briged School is located over in Mahanadibihar, near Nayabazar in Cuttack. It’s an older part of the city, and the school has that lived-in feel to it that you only get with time. You can see the history in the walls and the old trees that give some shade to the courtyard when the sun is out. Most of the kids who come here live just a few streets away, so you see their parents walking them to the gate every morning or picking them up in the afternoon. It’s a local spot where people know each other by name. The classrooms are big and have high ceilings, which really helps with the air during those humid months Cuttack is famous for. We spend a lot of time on the basics, making sure the students can read and write well. The staff room is usually a mess of papers and half-drunk cups of tea, but that’s just how we work. We don’t have any fancy mission statements plastered on the walls; we just focus on the textbooks and the exams. Sometimes the local monkeys come onto the roof and cause a bit of a distraction, which the kids love but the teachers hate. During the festivals, the whole school gets involved in decorating the place with whatever we have. It’s a practical place, not a fancy one. We’ve seen many groups of students pass through here and move on.