Casa dei Bambini in Chennai — Thanks to Maria Montessori

It was  Pongal last week  in Chennai. It is a time when Tamils celebrate the harvest–perhaps sort of like our Thanksgiving in America. Early in the morning, the housewives can leave behind their endless drudgery and become creative. Each becomes an artist, using the street right outside her door as her canvas. The woman bends from her waist down to the ground, pouring a special chalk like icing in a funnel onto the street. Some made dots in a geometric pattern to guide them in their designs. These amazing works of art called kolams last only hours. Soon they will be trampled or blown away.
So much of what we do in life is eventually trampled or blown away. But one creative work that we can do has lasting results. Maria Montessori found such a creative outlet–and it is this outlet that has become my medium.

I like to think that Italians think differently than the rest of the Western World. They can be creative and technical at the same time. They have always thought “outside the box.” They were never in the box and would see it as a coffin that would entomb their ideas. Maria was the first physician of Italy, but being a woman, she had that nurturing side. She saw the beautiful canvases of young minds.
On Tuesday, Prema and I went to our own Casa dei Bambini, not unlike the one Maria started in the slums of Roma. We had given them blocks and puzzles last week and were wondering how they were getting on. By the way, it is no good seeing the second video to understand the progress of the kids. You’d have to see the first one that I have uploaded about Lakshipuram that I made three years to really see the state of the children. Imagine giving a toy to a little child, and he just sits there and doesn’t play with it. You literally have to teach him to play. And where we are located is not the real slums, the real ghettos of Madras.
Well anyway, on Tuesday, we saw magic happen. We saw that the children’s little minds were more than canvases but gardens. We actually saw a few seedlings popping out from the soil where we had planted seeds. We are not the gardeners–Sarguna and Saraswati are–the teachers there. In spite of very low pay and no honor for what they do, they smile and care about the children. We have seen other teachers who are bitter, listless as the children, and short-tempered–yes, you know what that means. So these teachers are special. They were happy when we first came, but when they realized that we were coming regularly, they have a new glow in their eyes. We try to spend as much time with them as we do with the bambini.

Thank God Prema, my partner, speaks fluent Tamil and is so gentle and kind. She found out that one of the little girl’s mom died last week. The little girl was found wondering in the streets and fainted. She went for a cat scan at the hospital. Her older sister needs school fees now. Such are the unfinished stories that Prema hears. The 40 children stand for 40 families that we many never see but we can access through their most valuable resource–the next gen.

At this Pongal time, I thank God that I have access to be able to go to this pre-school center. I need it as much as any of the kids. It’s like writing a symphony, sculpting, researching. So many ideas come to mind when playing with these children, so thirsty to learn–their hands so eager to connect and form.
For many, the children at the government pre-school (anganwadi) are the trash of society. No one wants to marry an anganwadi teacher. In contrast to their lives, I’ve taught seminars for the software engineers–the IT elite–the best and the brightest. They swagger in class, talking into their cell phones with the pretentiousness of a maharajah. I’m thinking the next time I do a seminar for them, I have an idea for a team-building exercise–I will bring the straw mats we use in the anganwadis, have them all sit down in groups, pour the blocks out on each mat, and instruct each group to construct an anganwadi center.