Life was hard. I woke at three in the morning every day to walk several kilometers to work. These were typical frustrations of migrant youth. So going back to Kundapur brought all this back. The education system is driven by class and caste biases, and does not equip children to respond to other forms of poverty that play out in their lives.
Schools defeat their own purpose.
This analysis resonates with the children. Huddled in a building donated by the village council in Holagundi, more that 20 working children talk about the choices they have made for themselves. The government school is expensive and teachers beat us severely. It gave me nothing. Shammokha, who is 10, has similar insights.