Dreamland School

T N Mukherjee Road is a fairly well-known stretch in Makhla, and we sit right at number 98. It is a busy part of Hooghly, so there is always a lot of movement outside our gates. The school itself feels a bit like a maze sometimes with all the different rooms and stairs. We have a lot of wooden benches that have been around for a long time, and they have that specific smell of old wood and polish. During the rainy season, the courtyard gets some puddles, and we have to tell the kids to be careful not to slip. The teachers' room is usually a mess of notebooks and half-corrected papers, especially around exam time. We don't have a huge campus, but we make the most of the space we have. There is a small canteen nearby where we sometimes grab a quick snack if we missed breakfast. Most of us live nearby, so we walk or take a cycle to get here. The morning assembly is held in the open space, and it can get quite hot when the sun is out. We try to keep the plants near the entrance alive, though they struggle a bit in the peak of summer. It’s a place where you hear a lot of laughter and some occasional scolding when things get too rowdy. It’s just our daily reality here in Makhla, working through the school year one day at a time.