Dear reader,My Instagram handle is Jinoymash. No, this is not a social media plug. That is simply how I am—or perhaps how I once was—known in my village. I have been what Indian imagination would easily call a “tuition mash” for many years, especially during my college days, teaching little children who wandered into my life, one of whom was barely three.I can still see little Sanjo, whose father, a bank employee, wanted him to start school with “some basics”. Sanjo could not even pronounce his own name properly. He would say fa for sa: “Fanjo wants bifcuit.” It was so beautiful, so innocent, that I never once tried to correct him. When his father worried aloud about whether this would remain, I consulted a friend studying psychology who reached out to someone in speech therapy, and the professional reassured us it was harmless, something he would outgrow. And so it was: Sanjo shed fa for sa and became, in his father’s relieved words, “normal”. His father thanked me—the “mash”—for helping, but in truth it was the family’s patience, their willingness to wait, to withstand social pressure, to understand the boy as he was, that gave him the room to bloom.But Anoop Kumar’s (name changed) family had none of that understanding or knowledge, for they were poor, uneducated, and above all, unsupported. Anoop used to stammer; he could never finish the “r” in Kumar. He was, I know now, autistic. And his mind worked in remarkable, unexpected ways. Take this one example: he struggled to memorise the multiplication table of nine. It simply refused to lodge in his memory. So he invented a trick. Each time he recited, he placed both hands on the table. For 1×9, he folded one finger on his left hand and, quick as lightning, counted the nine that remained. For 2×9, he folded the second finger, saw the single finger on one side and eight on the other, and instantly declared “eighteen”. He did this all the way through the table, his eyes darting, his mind racing, and the answers always right.I never knew whether he had discovered an old trick or conjured it himself, but it worked. When I asked him why he did it, whether it was cheating, the frail little boy—he was still in primary school—looked up at me with wet eyes and whispered, “This is how I learn, mashe.” That helpless honesty pierced me. I did not stop him, but I did murmur that one day he might have to learn the “usual” way. I remember feeling a small sting of shame as the words left my mouth.Anoop had many such habits that the mainstream would dismiss as flaws, but to me, he was brilliant, witty, shy in a unique way, with a crooked smile that could disarm anyone. We grew close. By then, I was tutoring nearly every child in the village. Some families paid me, many did not, but they gave me love, respect, and plates of boiled bananas and eggs whenever they could.My little army grew fast: Anoop, Dhanya, Drishya, Remya, Chinnu, Ponnu, Paru, Avinash, and many others. We shared our afternoons, laughed, traded gossip. They told me everything—their schools, their teachers, their parents. In fact, they were my teachers; I was endlessly amazed by their intelligence, their presence of mind, their sharp grasp of the world.And yet one thing struck me then: almost all of them were afraid of school. Teachers, barring a rare kind soul, terrified them. For some children, school was preferable only because home was worse. In neither place did they find true care. They carried guilt for no fault, and they all knew, even at that age, that nobody really understood them.I was a powerless tutor. When they asked, “Why did the teacher hit me even after I said I was tired and could not finish homework?” or confided, “I love ambily maman, the moon, but when my teacher explains it in science I just want to pull my hair and run away,” all I could do was hug them, crack a small joke, and silently agree, because I too knew that the system was not built for them; I was myself its damaged product.The most wrenching question came years later, after I had left one June—the very month school began—to join university three hours away, staying in the hostel. Life moved, jobs carried me farther from the village, and my questions about those children to my parents or old friends dwindled.But one August, years later, when I was home from Delhi, where I then worked, it returned. I was dozing to the radio after lunch when I heard a giggle outside my door. My mother coaxed someone to enter. A hesitant voice answered, “No, I do not want to disturb mash!” It was Anoop.He looked almost the same, growth stunted perhaps from poor health, voice shriller, but the familiar awkwardness intact. He was a teenager now, I guessed. He spoke in broken bursts, and I learnt he had left school soon after I did, drifting through odd jobs—helper at a stationery shop, a printing press, a rice mill, etc. “You should have continued your studies,” I told him. He met me with the same helpless look I remembered from childhood. Then, suddenly, he shed his shyness, dashed forward in that short, jumpy run of his, hugged my waist so tight I had to steady myself, and blurted, “But you were not there when I came back from school. Why did you leave me, mashe? I would have stayed if you were there.” And then he left.I do not know how much of that was true, or how much was his way of explaining a harder life, but in that moment and even now, I feel I should have stayed. He needed someone who cared, who laughed with him, who never judged, who simply listened. I abandoned him.And of course, he was not the only one. We all know now, dear reader, that there are thousands like him—oppressed caste boys and girls, poor, dispossessed, abandoned. They may have tried their hardest, begged teachers for patience, attempted rote memorisation, tried to fit in, but many failed, dropped out, or vanished into the margins, because the system was never designed for them. They were children of poverty, carrying the unfulfilled dreams of working-class parents who lacked the money, exposure, or resources to take them for aptitude tests, to nurture their peculiar gifts, to shield them from abuse, depression, disillusion.These were government school children, and this was in a state celebrated for its literacy. I shudder to imagine what it meant elsewhere. Much has changed since then, but reports in newspapers and anecdotes from fellow journalists remind me how unfinished, how broken schooling in India still is: producing dropouts, broken spirits, wasted potential, and sometimes even criminals. It is a space where little is done, where the market bares its fangs, where power and money set the rules. It’s time this changed. Viksit Bharat, or whatever it is that we are building, cannot afford to fail our children. We must make schools and education more inclusive, non-elitist, accommodating, supportive, and egalitarian.This morning I thought again of Sanjo, of Anoop, and of the countless like them as I sat down to introduce Frontline‘s latest special issue on education, where Vishal Vasanthakumar, Divya Kannan, Anustup Nayak, Harshit Pai, Hem Borker, Meena Kandasamy, Merlia Shaukath, Mohini Gupta, Tarun Cherukuri, and Mridula Koshy examine India’s system, its burdened past, its chaotic present, its uncertain future, and beyond. It is a collection worth keeping, one that I believe can speak to teachers, parents, policymakers, and—at the very end of the spectrum—the likes of my Anoop.Do read it, and as always, write back with your stories and your thoughts.Wishing you a lovely week ahead,Jinoy Jose P.Digital Editor, FrontlineWe hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.inCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS