My life in schools began with dogs. In ninth grade, I was angry at cruelty, at neglect, at how easily people looked away. I joined an animal welfare group thinking, "If I can't change everything, I can at least change this." Years later, I realized that same anger was really about children.
I was furious at the wasted potential of children in India. It felt like a national crime we had normalised.
"People say founding a school is about vision. No one tells you it's also about learning how to leave, without abandoning the children who taught you how to stay."
After college, restless and bored, I walked into an Akanksha centre — a place for children from spaces I had only driven past with my windows up. One afternoon became a week, then a year. I became a teacher almost without noticing, pulled deeper into the question: what does it take for a child to live with dignity and possibility?
In 2007, I joined Akanksha's new school project in Pune. We were a small team, figuring everything out as we went.
We didn't start with buildings or boards. We started with a conviction: this school would be built around children, not adults.
I used to say in interviews, "I'm not hiring teachers. I'm hiring elder siblings." We looked for people disillusioned with the mainstream but not cynical. First came relationships. Could you sit on the floor, listen, be silly, hold a boundary with love? Pedagogy came later. We used whatever would hook kids into learning — Harry Potter for language, projects rooted in their own streets. We chose depth over breadth, even pausing the syllabus to "Fix the Ship" and rebuild foundational skills.
Everyone asked, "Aren't you falling behind?" I kept thinking, behind what? If they can't read?
Over time, the stories accumulated. Aman returned as an educator. Ashraf went into conservation. Ashwini, our tea server since 2007, now watches her son pursue a PhD in astrophysics abroad. Faizan sends photos from the merchant navy, his world larger than we ever imagined.
Through our Ghanti Bajawa Abhiyan, students took on domestic abuse. One girl stood up to violence in her house, backed by a campaign she and her classmates designed. It didn't magically fix everything, but the behaviour changed. She knew she wasn't alone.
Our children didn't just learn about social change; they became it, in buildings where that was never the expectation.
But the work grew heavier. The realities of the community walked into our classrooms. Addiction, instability. Classes swelled to forty, and our personalised methods strained. I felt every statistic about founder burnout in my bones.
We embraced the community school model, but questions linger. How do we personalise learning in a class of forty? How do we align with larger systems without losing our soul? How do I step back without letting go?
People say founding a school is about vision. No one tells you it's also about learning how to leave, without abandoning the children who taught you how to stay.
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