Vimla Kaul : Retired But Not Out!

When Mrs. Vimla Kaul retired twenty years ago, at the age of 60, she already knew that the sixties are the new forties. With vim and vigor, Vimla and her husband started a school for the children of those who could not afford schooling.

The venture took birth in 1993 in the village of Madanpur Khadar; an hour’s run from Delhi. After much convincing, the villagers conceded that their children needed an education. However, the first attempt fell flat. Barely five children enrolled. That’s when the Kauls moved base to their home-ground – Sarita Vihar – their place of residence in New Delhi.

As with all experimenters, their tests blew up in their faces. Upon arrival at Sarita Vihar, they managed to get an impressive enrolment of 150. They were satisfied, and only modestly ambitious for their young charges. The chief aim was to ‘teach them how to get their food’. Accordingly, the scope of their instruction was mainly functional. Between the two of them they managed to teach the children English, Math, Social Studies and Environmental Science.

Just when they had thought that things were settling down, the residents of their colony raised a hue and cry about ‘noisy children’, one good lady even went on a hunger strike. That’s when they had to shift to the municipal garden. They persevered for ten years, at the mercy of nature. Eventually an NGO adopted them – the little school by now was known as ‘Guldasta’ (bouquet) – and gave them an address to function out of.

Guldasta now operates from a humble four room tenement, housed in a dusty alley, and overlooks a junkyard. The shabby structure contrasts sharply with the bright rugs and the brighter children who stand eagerly by as their octogenarian teacher marks their work. The syllabus may be a tad old school (they learn the alphabet in the traditional manner); the ideology is conservative - she does not believe in the new fangled notions of ‘no-detention’ and holds the child back if he can’t make the grade. They also have stringent entrance and achievement tests. However, they don’t turn anyone away. They are also old fashioned enough to believe – ‘one must teach properly, that is the main thing.’ The results are clearly desirable. Two of the ‘alumni’ of Guldasta have begun assisting Mrs. Vimla Kaul (Mr. Kaul Passed a few years ago), yet another is a mechanic, a third holds a degree in Computer technology. One of her students works in a Chinese restaurant and has proudly treated his teacher to a free meal.

Nothing is perfect; certainly, none of the conditions that Guldasta operates in are anywhere near perfection. But it lives up to its name and creates a little bundle of joy and beauty, the scent of which permeates the immediate surroundings. Vimla Kaul’s noble sentiment – ‘If I can lift even one child out of their circumstances, that’s enough for me. But mostly I want to give them a childhood, some happy memories they can look back on, later in life’ – makes this happen.

By Madhuri Maitra

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