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 young children in a Delhi slum. Beneath a partially constructed flyover in eastern Delhi, Satyendra Pal makes use of a whiteboard to teach young children with no access to on the net finding out. A mathematics graduate who hails from a village in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Pal started taking classes in 2015. His initiative received considerably praise and appreciation in the course of the coronavirus-induced lockdown when schools shut down across the nation.
“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 Reuters 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 aid underprivileged young children located an admirer in Mr Nanda. “Ho kahin bhi aag, lekin aag jalni chahiye,” he wrote though sharing a image 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.”
हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए🙏 pic.twitter.com/NL0WqQBZQU
— Susanta Nanda IFS (@susantananda3) April 13, 2021
The poet’s words have been applied on Twitter time and once again to hail situations of courage and determination against all odds. IAS officer Awanish Sharan applied them to praise an ATM guard studying next to the machine.
हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए.
(साभार) pic.twitter.com/auLrv7GIso
— Awanish Sharan (@AwanishSharan) April 6, 2021
He had also applied the quote though sharing a image of a young boy studying at a tea stall.
हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए.
(साभार) pic.twitter.com/II561cJ7R1
— Awanish Sharan (@AwanishSharan) April 4, 2021
Activist Yogita Bhayana also applied “Ho kahin bhi aag…” to caption a image of a kid studying on a footpath, only a couple of actions away from his vegetable cart.
हो कहीं भी आग,लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए !! pic.twitter.com/vgO0SUNEGF
— Yogita Bhayana योगिता भयाना (@yogitabhayana) April 1, 2021
Satyendra Pal is not the only teacher who has gone above and beyond to aid students in tough occasions. Last year, a Delhi Police constable also earned praise for teaching young children who could not afford mobile phones for on the net classes.
Speaking to ANI, Constable Than Singh mentioned, “I have been running this school for a long time but during the start of the pandemic I closed it for children’s safety. But, when I saw many students were not able to take online classes, I decided to restart my school because they don’t have things like phone and computers,” he mentioned.