“फ se Field, श se Shiksha” is a series of 10 audio stories coming from the lived experiences and imaginations of education in rural India. Each episode offers a different take on education and its connections to caste, health, technology, and sexuality. How do we look at education outside classrooms? More importantly, who gets access to education at all? We explore all this and more, as members of our Learning Lab team—Khushi, Manisha, Ajfarul, Rani, Shobha, Vikas, Kulsum, Arti, Choti Rajkumari and Badi Rajkumari take us along on their journeys of shiksha.
A young girl employs a clever strategy to get her family’s support for higher education. But she soon discovers that her father is one step ahead of her and thus unravels this love–hate relationship between a father and daughter.
“Chhoti Bahuuu! Arre o Chhoti Bahu!”—is all one hears in the house from dawn to the end of day. Once a mischievous student, Sundari wears many different hats at home, in public, and at work, but there’s one that wears her out.
In the second “Hostel Diary”, Vikas recounts pursuing a crush during his time in Jodhpur with a bittersweetness that can only be afforded by young desire. Although he desperately wants to maintain his “good boy” image, the thrills of Hike Messaging and secret rendezvous might just be too tempting to resist.
As Vikas walks from his own Khatri Hostel to the Oswal Hostel for high-speed movie downloads using a newly installed Jio tower, he observes how caste, class and gender divide access to spaces in the city, offline and online.
All education and science is forgotten when a young, unmarried girl misses her period. As doctors, teachers, family members and friends intervene and interpret, conjectures are made and confusion and fear abound.
A (social) earthquake of epic proportions rocks Geeta’s colony. A girl in the neighbourhood has eloped with a boy from another caste. The aftershocks will now be felt in every other house in the area.
This young man has passed the board examinations, but the real challenge is to resist his family’s pressure for arranged marriage. Here’s a tale of confusions, anxieties, and frustrations that go into the making of a man finding his voice.
The Marwari family mocks both Achuki’s aspirations as well as her mother’s lack of a formal education. Will Achuki be able to reason with them or is negotiation the only way?
With her incessant quips and repartees, Achuki lives up to the meaning of her name in this playful narration. She is a young girl frustrated with her family and the larger Marwari Bania society. Unsure whether to scream or sigh, she wonders, “When will mindsets change?”
People find a way to be nosy about others’ business everywhere. But there is one question that particularly disrupts Khushi’s peace of mind every single time. Like a pinch of salt on an old wound, the question has different answers as Khushi walks around in the streets of Lucknow.
