Kumudvathi Residential Central School

If you drive down Shimoga Road towards Shikaripur, you’ll see our gate. It’s a residential school, so things are a bit different here because the kids actually live on the grounds. That means the place never really stays quiet. Even at night, there’s a bit of activity with the dorms. We’ve got the regular classrooms and then the living areas which are just basic rooms for the students. Living in Shimoga means dealing with the rain and the green trees everywhere around us. The staff here spends a lot of time just managing the day-to-day things, like making sure the kitchen is running and the kids have their books. It’s a lot of work to keep a place like this going. We don’t have any fancy robots or high-tech stuff, just regular chalkboards and benches. Sometimes the power goes out and we just have to wait it out. The routine is the same most weeks. Breakfast, classes, a bit of play, and then study time in the evening. People come from the surrounding villages to drop their children off here. It feels like a small village of its own sometimes. We try to keep the grounds tidy, but with so many people living in one spot, there is always something to clean or fix. It’s just a practical place for learning and living without any extra fuss. We are just doing what needs to be done every day. You can see the lights from the dormitory buildings from the road late at night.