Day three was a wrap up session. We did a last round of playing our instruments. Spoke a bit about the art from, and the instruments. We recreated the images from the story and presented it to everyone on the school.

In the end, the artists performed their signature “bhaya hum alwar se aaye hain” song and got the students to add their bit to the song.

The biggest achievement though, was that Yusuf bhai got along his 4 year old sister, Kehekasa. He said, that after the last session with the students, he asked his sister to sing and was surprised to see who well she sings. He claims he is going to work with her and get her to perform as well. This was a surprise for me as well, since they claimed that girls from villages can’t sing or perform. Even if it is just a beginning, I am glad that Yusuf paid attention to his sister and thinks that she should learn more and use her skills. The little one sang one song for all of us present there.

If I assess what is it that the kids from this place learned in the process, it is very different in some sense from what the APS students learned. Here the objective was not to see how much the students retain in terms of the details of the art from. The idea was to open it up in front of them. We wanted them to open up to the idea of music, specially music that has originated from their village. Our success lied in the enthusiasm with which the girls were trying to match their beats with the artists. How the boys were trying to make songs with them.

I think in this case, its the experience of engaging with the art from that mattered.