Author: Will Randall
Publisher: ABACUS
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 242
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0349116784
Description
Will Randall thought teaching in an inner London comprehensive was a difficult enough job. But that was nothing compared to his next assignment: saving as slum school in the Indian city of Poona.
Learning as much as he is teaching, Will finds his life transformed by his remarkable class of orphans: Dulabesh, the head-standing joker who lost his parents on a crowded railway platform; Prakash, who learnt self-sufficiency the hard way by scavenging in skips; the nutty yet charming Tanushri, fan of the singer Maradona.
When the slum barons threaten to level the school, Will hits upon the idea of a fund-raising play to save it: the 24,000-verse Indian epic the Ramayana, ever so slightly condensed.
Funny, sharp and poignant, Will Randall's second book is gloriously life-affirming, exposing the India the tourist doesn't see.
Contents
PROLOGUE
The School and the Spark Plugs
Where to, Auntie?
A Most Noble Profession
Billbhaiya
Tracheotomy!
Osho
Dear Maradona
One Very Dumb Fellow
Wilbur the Pig
Let's Go Fly a Kite
Rolling!
I'm Getting Married in the Morning
The Play's the Thing
Play Up and Play the Game
Mental Riches
One Fellow from England
Everything Became Very Quiet
Ganpati
The PBB
Come on you Ashram!
Curtain Up
Epilogue