Indian Forest Service officer Susanta Nanda borrowed the words of renowned Hindi poet Dushyant Kumar to praise a teacher who has been taking classes for children in a Delhi slum. Beneath a partially built flyover in eastern Delhi, Satyendra Pal uses a whiteboard to teach children with no access to online learning. A mathematics graduate who hails from a village in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Pal began taking classes in 2015. His initiative received much praise and appreciation during the coronavirus-induced lockdown when schools shut down across the country.
“I stopped the classes in March because it was too dangerous, but parents requested me to teach again,” he was quoted as saying by news agency at the time. “I want to earn money, but if I focus on myself I will earn alone. If I help these kids, they will all earn with me.”
Mr Pal’s initiative to help underprivileged children found an admirer in Mr Nanda. “Ho kahin bhi aag, lekin aag jalni chahiye,” he wrote while sharing a picture of the teacher in his open-air ‘classroom’. The quote, taken from a motivational poem by Dushyant Kumar, roughly translates to, “It doesn’t matter where it burns, but keep this fire burning.”