Swami Sivananda Vidya Mandir

You can find us at Mono Villa on Pithapur Road in the Dargha Bazar area of Cuttack. This part of the city is always crowded and busy, but once you get inside the school gates, things settle down a bit. The building is an older style house that was converted to fit classrooms. It has that specific Cuttack feel with the narrow stairs and the thick walls. The dampness from the river air sometimes leaves marks on the walls, so we are always thinking about when the next coat of paint should happen. In the mornings, the smell of street food from the bazaar drifts in through the windows. The students come from all the narrow lanes around here, mostly walking or on rickshaws. We have a small courtyard where we do the morning prayers and some light exercises. The library is small, mostly just a few wooden shelves filled with old books that have been donated or bought over the decades. Teachers use the desks in the corner to do their work. It gets quite loud during the breaks because the sound bounces off the walls of the villa. We don’t have a big sports field, so the kids just play what they can in the open space we have. It’s a practical place where children from the neighborhood come to study without any big fuss or unnecessary extras. We have been here for a long time and the routine stays the same through the seasons.