Blog

By Palashi Vaghela

Exams were over. Blood and sweat had been poured into mathematical equations and brains had been wretched by the formulae in science. The girls who work in Jugaad Lab (eight of them) had been waiting too long for the 17th of March. They had all put their best outfits on and arrived at the FAT office way before time. Their screams of excitement and hustling had made the morning at FAT a rather unusual one. While we arranged for breakfast to accompany the matron-like instructions to be followed for the day, Deepika (an intern at FAT) and I felt like we were being put into a massive complex of not being dressed up enough for the big day. Each of the girls, as obsessed as they are with trying new hairstyles, put my skimpy loose hair to shame and almost made me believe we were all set for a photoshoot.

But the evil science teacher in me, who had no regard for how much they didn’t feel like studying post exams, had different plans. I wanted to take them exploring to the National Science Centre and Nehru Planetarium in New Delhi. Now I knew that they would rather go for a movie instead of watching the solar system being unveiled in a dome. But I also knew that if they were to look at science and math as something that one can have fun with, this was the right time to do it.

Two overcrowded autos arrived at the National Science Centre and the first amazing thing our team discovers is a machine that tells the amount of water and other elements present in a person’s body based on their weight. Fascinating as this was, it wasn’t as cool as the natural water cycle emulator and the model of a water treatment plant where the water was flowing as a string of LED lights blinking away to glory. While the girls couldn’t get enough of this, they still wanted to explore more. Almost tempted to scatter around and wander, they were only slightly in my scope of vision because of all the yelling I was doing to keep them nearby. Exploring this place was just as exciting for a ‘nerd’ like me! Key-less, string-less piano made of sensors, a contraption of humungous proportions illustrating the laws of motion, exploring the human body through interesting interactive models— this place was every curious human’s Disneyland! As an instructor and mentor, the moment that struck me the most was how the girls did not need to be told to read the descriptions next to each artifact to know the story or the principle behind it, unlike in class where I would be tempting them with treats in exchange of having a paragraph read; all in vain!

There were other kids from schools who had come with their teachers to visit the science centre. Neha (a student in Jugaad Lab) called me to the model showing motor control of the left and right half of the human body along with the different parts of the brain, she exclaimed: ‘Look, what’s happening! I can make him move!’ My immediate reaction was of reflecting on the scientific principle and application behind this magic. What exactly is happening here? The idea was to not just play with the toys but to actually try to find what was it trying to throw light on. I asked her: "Do you know, Neha, how this is working? Think about what and how of the toys around here as you play with them, won't you?" As I stated this, a teacher standing next to me looked up and gave a small laugh in solidarity, almost as if we were silently agreeing upon how both our groups of kids were interacting with the things here. I was a teacher at that moment, just like any other school teacher. Something that I had never imagined myself to be, but here I was, doing the most difficult job in the world!

Since we wanted to make it in time to the Planetarium for the afternoon show, the exploring was cut short, much to the disappointment of the young ladies. I promised to get them back for more and rushed the gang to my favourite place in Delhi. One of the most remarkable events of my childhood was the trip I took to the Nehru Planetarium as a kid. Much of my nosiness and curiosity towards understanding the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the world on Earth, took a sharp turn into wanting to explore the infinite sky over my head after this visit. The biggest gift a person could have would be that of imagination and oh boy, mine ran wild! I wanted to be the next astronomer or astrophysicist unraveling the mysteries of the big universe. That image of the constellations, planets and what-not in that dome changed how I looked at humans and the horizons of what we are capable of. Since my engagement with FAT and the girls of Jugaad Lab, I have been looking for a chance to open their minds up to these horizons and it was almost as much fun as I imagined it to be.

As they say, things don’t always go according to the plan for a reason. Here, the reason was girls being excited about things that seemed ordinary to me. It was the simple pleasures that were the highlight of the day: not the planetarium but the fact that they were out in the city, under the sun, exploring places without parental supervision. The cherry on the top was the pizza that all of us relished up to the last crumb.    The silly instructor in me looked within and consoled the mildly disheartened science teacher that they will get there slowly. The impact the trip had in piquing their curiosity was nevertheless remarkable. The science teacher in me too had understood that girls just want to have fun post-exams, and mumbo-jumbo about the solar system in an air-conditioned dome was surely delightful, but not exactly fun. Well, I am not going to give up that easily; science can be fun and nerds can be cool. See you on my next adventure on trying to prove the world wrong!

Palashi Vaghela is a Programme Associate at FAT who handles the Jugaad Lab and is also engaged with the school intervention program