St Francis Xavier School

We’ve been here at 35, Cantt Road for a good while now. Lucknow gets really hot in the summer, so the mornings here are always a bit of a scramble to get things moving before the sun gets too high. You’ll see kids walking through the gates with their bags slightly too big for them. It’s a normal place, really. We spend most of our time just making sure the classrooms are tidy and the fans are actually working. Some of the desks have been around for years and have names carved into them by students who probably have their own kids now. The staff room is usually a mess of notebooks and half-finished tea cups. We don’t have fancy stuff, just the usual boards and chalk. On rainy days, the water pools a bit near the entrance, and we have to put out some old mats so no one slips. It’s noisy during the breaks, then quiet when the bell rings. Parents stop by the gate to drop off lunch boxes they forgot. Life here moves along. We know the neighbors and the local shopkeepers nearby. It is just a school in the middle of a busy city doing what it does every day. Nothing too complicated about it. We just open the doors and get to work with the students. Sometimes the electricity goes out and we just open the windows wider. That’s how it is here.