Laxmi Sharda Vidya Prabodhini

Shukrawar Peth is one of those old parts of Pune that has so much history. We are at Bharat Bhavan, Plot No 1360. If you look up, we are right above the Vishwa Hindi Parishad office. It’s a bit of an old-school building. The stairs are narrow, and you can hear the echoes when people walk up and down. Being in Pune 411002, everything is close by. The streets are narrow and usually filled with parked two-wheelers. Inside our space at Laxmi Sharda Vidya Prabodhini, things are pretty simple. We have wooden benches and a few cupboards filled with old files and textbooks. It’s not the kind of place with air conditioning in every corner; we mostly rely on the ceiling fans and the breeze from the windows. There’s a certain weight to the atmosphere here, maybe because it’s an old building in an old part of the city. We don’t go in for big advertisements or flashy signs. Most people find us by word of mouth or by just walking past Bharat Bhavan. It gets quite busy in the afternoons when the students arrive. We just sit there, go through the notes, and try to make sense of the syllabus. It’s a very grounded place. No corporate talk, just a bunch of people in a room in Shukrawar Peth trying to get some studying done. The street noise outside is just a part of our day-to-day life here.