On the border of Bankura and Purulia districts of West Bengal, surrounded by the villages of Ushardihi, Kaduri, Porashibona and Jamdoba, there is a place called Brahmodanga.
It was a barren piece of land, its soil sandy, hard and red. Apart from some palm, date and palash trees here and there, little else grew. Although it connects the four villages, the Santhals avoided Brahmodanga. They believed it was haunted by a brahmadaityi or ghost.
Today, the same Brahmodanga… No, we shall come to that bit later.
Far away from Brahmodanga, Bhaswati Ray was planning her escape from corporate America. This was in the early 2000s.
She tells The Telegraph, “My office was in the middle of a forest but once I went inside, I would not know what was happening in the world outside, whether it rained or snowed. By the time I came out, it would be pitch dark and the day would be over.”
Today, she cannot remember what it was that worked as the last push, the final impetus.
Bhaswati Ray planting paddy with village women
It could have been an unhappy ending to some well-thought-through project. Or it could have been a moment brought on by her experience of volunteering with the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council of the United Nations. Or the weeks spent in the slums of Nairobi as a UN volunteer.
In 2016, Bhaswati quit her job and moved back to India. She was 58 years old.
From the islands of the Sundarbans to the villages around Calcutta, she travelled widely, searching for a place where she could do more than just settle down.
When she finally arrived at Brahmodanga, something clicked. A no-man’s land, the place was commonly referred to as Ushardihi after its closest village. “At first, I only purchased one bigha of land and hired local men and women to build me a mudhouse,” says Bhaswati.
It was during those initial days that Bhaswati learnt the Santhali way of living. She says, “One evening, it started to pour, and strong winds blew. The women who were building the house always brought their children along. As darkness fell and it kept pouring, I started losing my mind, wondering how they would make their way home. After all, I had only one room; so many people would not fit in it.”
As she was worrying, she heard what sounded like many people singing. When she stepped out, she saw the women and children cramped under the shed singing away monsoon songs merrily.
Since then, the children started visiting Bhaswati’s house regularly. They played with her and she started to teach them random lessons. By and by, Bhaswati’s little arrangement came to be known locally as Khelapora Pathshala.
Bhaswati says, “When I was volunteering with the UN, I was sent to Kenya for a project on mental development of adolescent girls. There, I worked with NGOs that addressed problems of child marriage, teen pregnancies, rape culture and financial dependencies. But in Ushardihi, I learnt that Santhal girls do not really need that kind of mental upliftment. They have a strong sense of community, and young girls have the freedom to choose their partners.” She adds, “So I decided to focus on their education instead.”
In the villages near Ushardihi, school days are centred around mid-day meals. Bhaswati says, “As soon as lunch is served, the children leave school in a great romp and spend the rest of the day roaming around.”
They speak in Santhali, but the medium of instruction in schools is Bengali. They call it hor bhasha, hor means “human” in Santhali. Bhaswati says, “Until Class V or VI, children hardly understand the school lessons. I try to help them with their studies and teach them some extracurricular activities.”
She continues, “They need to be educated for their own sake, so that they are not cheated out of their home and hearth and earnings.”
The children find great joy in Bhaswati’s care. They learn yoga, painting, sculpting and computer skills under her tutelage. “Music and dancing are integral to the Santhali way of life,” says Bhaswati. “They laugh at the thought of learning these formally.”
She thinks back to one of her early days in Ushardihi. Says Bhaswati, “I saw from a distance some of the children running away with a sack over their shoulders. When I called them, they just hid from me. Later, I learnt that they had caught rats for their dinner and were embarrassed to show me.”
She adds, “Santhals were originally hunters and gatherers. They are not used to buying their food, nor do they have enough money to do so.”
Bhaswati has been teaching the younger children to manage their own finances. “Some 11 or 12 of my older girls went to the bank and opened savings accounts. They rode their bicycles and went in a group, and the whole village was in awe. They said, ‘Didi, the bank people treated us with respect!’”
At the end of each day, when darkness falls and everyone returns home, Bhaswati sits in the darkness and thinks. She says, “I take out a stool and sit in the darkness. For miles and miles, there is no light visible. It frees me from the responsibility of doing things, of being productive. It gives me joy like nothing else.”