Muljibhai Mehta International School

Up in Virar West, things are always a bit crowded, especially around the Agashi Road area. Our school is situated right in the middle of Gokul Township, so there are apartment buildings all around us. It makes the mornings very lively when all the families are waking up and the kids are walking over to the school gates. The building itself is quite modern compared to some others in Palghar, but it still has that lived-in feel with scuff marks on the walls and posters that are slightly lopsided. The office is a busy place where the phone never seems to stop ringing, mostly parents asking about bus timings or school holidays. Our staff room is where we all gather to complain about the humidity or talk about the commute on the local trains. The playground is decent-sized for this part of town, though it gets very hot in the afternoons since there isn’t much shade. We have a canteen that sells snacks, and the smell of fried food usually drifts through the windows around recess time. It’s a very suburban kind of school, very much a part of the local community in Virar. We don’t try to be anything we’re not; we’re just a local school providing a place for the kids in the township to go every day. There’s always something that needs fixing, like a broken window or a faulty fan, but we just get on with it.