Life at Aarohi Life Education
It was a long-awaited trip. The work at Pitaara, Lockdown and other personal commitments delayed it by at least 2 years. The first stop was Aarohi Life.
Aarohi Life Education — is a small residential campus in Hosur, Tamil Nadu. It’s a 2-hour long drive from Bangalore Airport. I was visiting them for a 5-day visitors week which is designed to give people the first-hand experience of life at Aarohi. I feel that it is done to help one cover the distance between the reality of the space and the imagination which one builds about it. This makes it much easier for a family to decide whether they want their child to join the Aarohi community.
Aarohi is run by Aditi and Ratnesh, now in their 50s, has been running Aarohi for more than 20 years. They both gave away lucrative careers to start an open learning movement and space in India. Both of them are happy, kind and very accommodating people. They are also very technology savvy which helps them to make the running of Aarohi very efficient on-campus and off-campus.
The Campus:
Situated in a beautiful green campus with a lot of open spaces to play and sit in, Aarohi is a super resource-full learning space. A significant share of the land is dedicated to farming. They have a well-equipped kitchen, carpentry, maker space, art material repository, game repository full of games created by children themselves, an old bus which serves as a library, equipment for sports and much more. In terms of resources, it’s a treasure house, you never know what you might end up finding there. Located in a village, it has easy access to small forests, and rocks which allows residents of the campus to do night hikes, star gazing, rock climbing, lakeside picnics and swims.
Life at Aarohi
The days at Aarohi are quite intense. It starts at 6 am and goes on till 10 pm. The day includes Exercises, yoga, Morning circles, Day Planning, Campus Care, a Game hour and Reflection circles. Everyone on the campus plans their day in the morning and accordingly goes ahead with it. Aarohi stands for DOING. So there isn’t much talk that I had with Aditi and Ratnesh. My time there was spent in doing and observing. It was a very intense week and so much happened in just one week that at some point I found myself waiting for it to get over. Nevertheless, it was jam-packed with fun and learning.
Aarohi is a close-knit community and the children take the full responsibility of running the space. All the chores are shared between all the people on the campus. There are two rooms with bunk beds on the ground floor and another two on the top floor, which serves as a sleeping space for the entire community. It has a several open spaces for group activities. There is a beautiful dome made with natural material which serves as a enclosed space for sessions. It’s where I learnt my first song in Hindustani classical taught by Deepika, a student at Aarohi. Aarohi feels abundant in terms of resources.
I spent my time learning how to calibrate a telescope with a group of children who got curious to work with a telescope. It involved reading manuals that had instructions on how to calibrate and watching videos to figure out the tricks to do the same. I realised how hard it is sometimes to figure out things on your own. We are so dependent and habitual of having an expert around who will tell us how to do things, that we just struggle when left on our own. I experienced first-hand how open learning is not about learning a topic, but more about learning how to learn, to be able to devise ways to learn what you want to — sometimes by seeking help, sometimes by reading books and sometimes just by staying long enough with the problem.
It’s when one is completely left free to pick and drop a topic, a learning goal without any external nudge, that one can truly know if their interest in the subject is superficial or real. It’s only after this process of picking up multiple interests, trying them and losing interest or getting ones full with that particular interest, that there arises an opportunity for one to find something that they have unwavering interest in.
Campus Care was another wonderful part of our daily routine at Aarohi. It was an hour dedicated to taking care of the campus. We divided ourselves into 3 groups, each responsible for a different task ranging from watering plants/trees, cleaning — brooming and mopping the indoor spaces, cleaning the solar panels, repairing anything that needed repair, and any other chores related to the space. I would feel lazy to do it sometimes, but doing it with so many other people, kept it fun. I also think it is a great learning opportunity in disguise. In my time at Aarohi, through campus care, I learnt two skills — mulching huge trees and cleaning a solar panel. These tasks though seem trivial need a certain level of prior knowledge needed to be able to do them right.
I feel doing these chores allows one to engage and learn about different things that we use in our daily lives. It not only builds your hands-on skills, but it is also an opportunity for emergence and stimulation.
Another thing I loved at Aarohi was the community sports hour. Every evening, an hour was dedicated to playing outdoor games. These were collaborative games, or team games designed by Aarohi kids over the years. Everyone on the campus played for this one hour with full energy. I would be dead tired by the end of it. But at the same time, I could feel my heart throbbing, it made me feel closer to myself.
It’s also a great way to create a space for children to lead. Also, different games involve different skills, thus creating avenues for different individuals to shine. It also creates a space for everyone to practice — teamwork, adjustment, patience and tolerance. And it brings the entire community together.
We spent evenings doing theatre, reflection exercises, conversations over dinner, playing board games, and hearty discussions with students about their thoughts on life. Our days involved art, play, music, dancing, reading, making stuff, helping each other in their projects etc. Everything was led by students. I was inspired by so many students taking the lead and designing not only their own but entire communities’ learning. My favourite was Sarvesh, an eight-year-old, who designed his entire day in such detail and made sure that he executed his plan. Within a day I saw him self-learning candle-making, bungee-jumping, reading and playing board games. It’s proof of the fact that if left on their own, kids will spend their time wisely.
The last and final thing we did at Aarohi was a trek which included — rock climbing followed by climbing down a giant tree through a narrow space, to finally reach a lake. We started early in the morning on our last day at Aarohi for a trek to a nearby lake. We were a group of 15–20 which included children and adults. It was a very small trek but included multiple experiences. First was rock climbing. While I was initially scared, some children were going up and down the rock, closing their eyes. That along with cheering from Ratnesh, gave me the courage to try it out. And to my surprise, I could climb the rock. Next was climbing down the gigantic tree, which was once a home to huge owl. It was an experience of a lifetime. While children simply breezed through it, for adults with years of accumulated fear, it was quite challenging. It not only involved breaking own mental barrier but also a real physical challenge. After doing it, one felt victorious. It also became a trust-building exercise.
I felt that we live in a world which has more avenues for people with certain strengths (such as the ability to speak well) to shine. Or rather because we have started to live in a monoculture, with very little diversity in our days and lives, the opportunities to see the strengths of various people become limited. And to be able to truly respect someone, or to think of someone as a meaningful part of a community, we must know the value they add to the community. Thus there must be diversity in activities we do as a community so that all kinds of connections can be built and everyone gets seen. Climbing down the tree helped me see how a woman who felt so aloof and inactive generally, was a very fun and supporting friend. She was not only the first one to climb down, but also very apt at giving instructions to all of us on how to climb down.
We all have our strengths. And we all need each other. It’s important that we truly see each other, and can value each other. There is no alternative to collaboration. True collaboration is only possible when we feel a connection with and respect for each other.
Another lasting memory I have of that day is of my attempt to climb a tree. It was after we finished eating our DIY sandwiches, we were sitting watching over the children who were playing in the lake. We were surrounded by the beautiful tamarind trees. I thought of climbing one. Krish — a teenage boy in our group was adept at it and was already sitting on the top of one. Other children were trying to climb as well. It was the first time, I found the courage to even try. It was mostly because of the non-judgemental environment that was created there by the group. I wasn’t feeling watched. I tried a few times and failed. I saw Ratnesh cheering me up from the distance and was hoping for him to come and help a little. At some point, I realised that I was on my own. I saw he had no intention to come and help. Rather he had a clear resolve to not interfere. It was then when I was clear that there was no help coming, I gave it my all. I gave myself an upward push, holding the tree tightly, not caring about the ruggedness of the tree hurting my hands, and I climbed up the trunk of the tree. It was an easy way up from there. It gave me in the truest sense possible — a feeling of accomplishment. It also strengthened my self-belief.
I learnt that it’s when you fully accept that no one is coming to help you out, you start giving your best to solve a problem on your own. I feel that’s the most important thing I saw happening at Aarohi for the children.
Like all good things, our time at Aarohi finally came to an end. We waved them goodbye, taking with us the beautiful memories and learning we had in these 5 days.
P.S. — This write-up is focused towards sharing what I experienced at Aarohi. It is in no way a promotion of the place. I feel, like everything else, Aarohi is a mixed bundle of good and bad. While there were multiple aspects that I loved about the place, there were also a few areas which I found hard to appreciate. Aarohi as a learning space suits some families and children, while it doesn’t suit others. It’s only by spending some time there can truly decide if it’s a right fit for them. But what I can say for sure is, it was a beautiful experience, and was worth the week I spent there.
