Madarsa Azhari

If you look for us in Bhind, you have to find Khidakiya Mohalla and then look for Munna Singh Advocate Gali. It’s one of those narrow lanes where everyone knows each other. The Madarsa is right there in the middle of everything. It’s not a very big place, just a few rooms where we sit with the students. Most of the kids live in the houses nearby, so they just walk over in the morning. We don’t have school buses or anything like that. The walls are painted a simple color and we have mats on the floor for sitting. It gets very quiet when the lessons start, which is nice because the street outside can be quite noisy with people talking and scooters going by. I usually sit near the door to catch whatever breeze comes through. We teach the basics and spend a lot of time on reading. The building is old and sometimes the roof leaks a little when it rains heavily in July. We just move the mats to a dry spot and carry on. There is no big office or computer room here. We use books that have been passed down for a few years. In the afternoons, the sun sets behind the houses and the lane gets dark pretty quickly. We finish our work, say our goodbyes to the neighbors, and lock the wooden doors. It’s just a small community place doing what it can for the local kids.