Our Alumni

If you study to remember, you will forget, but, If you study to understand, you will remember. - Unknown

Children who have graduated at 10th standard from Poorna have pursued their studies and interests in a variety of fields. Here is a sample of some of their voices and stories:

Babushka Chauhan
Samarth Chauhan
Zuri Camille
Zaeen
Sidharth T C
Govind T C
Jayanthi Joseph

Babushka Chauhan, studied at Poorna from 1997 to 2002:

My journey after Poorna has been quite a different experience altogether. I did my +2 in Mount Carmel College, Bangalore and found it a college worthy and enterprising enough to continue with my B.A there too. I chose to do History, Economics, Psychology and Sociology in PUC which laid my foundation for Psychology, English Literature and Communicative English (a stepping stone to Mass Communication) for my under-graduate course. I graduated this year, i.e. 2007, and have now taken a break from academics and am working in a brand management company to gather practical knowledge for my future (academic) endeavors .

Poorna
Poorna,
An experience of endless possibilities and potentialities;
often driven by one's infinite imagination,
the environment,
the people
and fulfilled by an indelible education.
And if it's not holistic,
it is not Poorna.
Let go in Poorna,
one finds ones' own boundaries,
horizons, deep waters and clarity here.
It's amazing how this sense of freedom
and accountability creates a path undivided
and one that not many take as often
but one that definitely makes all the difference.
Babushka Chauhan

Samarth Chauhan studied at Poorna from 1997 to 2004: I did my commerce in Presidency College, and now I'm at St. Josephs College of Commerce doing BBM.

The quintessential learning experience:
It's been three years since I've graduated out of Poorna, and I can honestly say that I am very proud to have been there for a better part of my schooling. When I first walked through those gates it really did not make an impact on me, it was "just a school." But now that I've moved back into the decadent system of Indian education, I can understand what Poorna truly was. Poorna always offers a really interesting bunch of students both juniors and seniors. There is no concept of superiors and subordinates; no one is treated as a junior or as a senior by the students that comprise Poorna. This perhaps is one of the most amazing environments to be in, coupled with the personal attention given to one by the faculty
By far this is the most attractive aspect of Poorna. At the end of the day some of the members of the faculty turn out to be people you can actually sit down and have an open conversation with, and not feel awkward that you are indeed conversing with a teacher.

I've been through absolutely everything that Poorna could possibly have to offer, both good and bad. There were times when I hated school and then there were times when I actually looked forward to going to school and playing football and climbing trees, but that's not what Poorna is all about. I really love the fact that we were given the freedom to attend any class we wanted to, without being hounded about bunking.

Whilst in Poorna I had the opportunity of doing several extra-curricular activities that I may not have done ordinarily; such as pottery, theatre (loved it), football (love it the most), art, music, gardening, calligraphy, needlework and what not.

Classes in Poorna were incredibly interactive (something you'll sorely miss in any other educational institution). I still remember my journal and my music class with Ujwala Samarth in my tenth grade; those were by far the best classes.

What separates Poorna from the rest of the schools is the unity, the fact that everyone in the school understands the situation and works efficiently towards it; the school mela is a good example, not to forget the fund raisers that are conducted by performing plays.

Poorna was also the place that helped me determine what I wanted to pursue after I had graduated.

Reaching my conclusion, Poorna is a school where there are no heavy bags, no boring days when one just wants to beat oneself with a blunt object, no exams, and no pressures. It's a place where one can truly live out one’s childhood to the fullest extent and not have to grow up too fast. One really enjoys the experience at Poorna in retrospect; well that's how it is with me and my mates at least.
Samarth Chauhan

Zuri Camille, Studied at Poorna from 1996 to early 2007.
On School
This is about how Poorna, my school, has been one of the things that has made me the way I am today…but before that I think that I should first start with what exactly Poorna is.

Poorna is what many people would call an ‘alternative school.’ It was started as a challenge from a daughter telling her mother to start her own school if she had so many problems with the education system here. From just three children, Poorna has travelled a long road filled with pot holes and bumps and ruts to become a school of nearly a hundred and fifty. From the garden of a house to a leaky rented building to recently shifting into a building of its own, Poorna has grown and along with it, so have I…this is on school and how it has made me the person I am right now.

Firstly, I have to say that this is not supposed to be a piece on how great my school was because I don’t think that it was perfect (no school is!), I feel a lot of things could have been done differently, but at the same time I also feel that a lot of things were also done right. I hope to get some sort of a balance between criticism and praise and maybe I will. Mainly I don’t want to just focus on the school and its history but on what I understood was the school’s ideology and what were its principles and how exactly that has changed me.

I have been in Poorna for eleven years! Sometimes I have loved it and sometimes I have wanted to be in a ‘normal’ school so badly I have even cried, asking my self why my parents put me in this place…trust melodramatic me to do that! Through all those tears and laughs and fights with the teachers and students, with my parents (and my friend’s parents) as well as with my friends, I have learnt something and have changed just a bit…a bit, mind you, but I have changed.

I ask myself today if it was those eleven years at Poorna which made me finally see that I wanted one more year to be free, to do things I enjoy, and to learn things differently and continue to explore and I think that it did influence the decision. We were given a lot of freedom in school most of the time…sometimes, I felt that we were reprimanded for the silliest things, but I will come to the criticism, be patient! As I was saying, Poorna, no, most of the teachers in Poorna gave us a lot of freedom though I feel that not all teachers were comfortable with this freedom.

See, we were not made to stand up and answer questions, we were not made to call teachers ‘sir’ and ‘madam’, we weren’t made to sit quietly when the teacher told us something that we didn’t agree with. What we were told to do was call them by their names (for me, when you call someone ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ it is very superficial because it is done not because you respect the teacher but because you have to or because you’re scared of the teacher). We were told to tell them our opinion on what they said, we had discussions and arguments also…but civilised ones! I really enjoyed classes (mainly social studies and business or even science sometimes) where we had to prove why we thought something was so.

For example, if I didn’t agree with what the teacher said, I would have to tell her the reason behind my thinking and would have to prove my point to her…convince her that what I said was right and that she was wrong. I remember my History teacher Shanti and I would have really heated discussions on many topics—from why she thought communism was not that great and why I thought it was not so bad to why she went on comparing India to Europe. Sometimes we would end up agreeing on things (yes, communism may be bad but if we take a few of its elements and blend it with our constitution it may help…maybe we shouldn’t be very leftist though…) and sometimes I would end up throwing my books on my desk and walking out in a huff or she would send me out of class herself!

Whatever it was, for me, those arguments and debates were a good thing because I cannot stand it when a person a bit older than me speaks to me as though being younger than twenty or so means that I know nothing; I hate it when people tell me that because they are older than me they are definitely right. What rubbish is that?!! Age is not all there is to wisdom -- it all depends on how you as a person absorb new things and how much you are willing to learn, be it from a child or from an adult. It is true that you see a lot more things as you grow, but what use is that if you don’t put your experience to use?

So I am thankful that one thing many of the teachers, including my mother, have drilled into me is to speak my mind, to use my mouth and my mind together—to not talk for the sake of talking and to not keep my thoughts locked up in my mind…I admit, I have gotten into a lot of trouble over this because sometimes this leads me to say things that I do eventually regret because many people then think that I am very arrogant (and sometimes rude). See, the main problem with Indian culture is that people are not used to having children oppose them…this has to change if we want our country to move forward!

Another thing that was drilled into us was human rights and how to treat everyone equally. Commenting on a person’s skin colour or discriminating on the basis of religion or using racist terms was something that was just not done, in school or outside, and I am very relieved because something I find sickening is that a lot of people here in India are very, very concerned about what caste a person is or what religion they are. Communalism is something that really is so dangerous here in India because we have such a mix of cultures. So many of my friends have problems with Muslims especially and they don’t seem to realise that what they are saying could start a riot or could just lead to another person, another human being, feeling really hurt. Many a time I find that these thoughts they are saying are not even their own, but what parents or aunts or grandparents have told them.

In school we also met and talked to many, many people who are trying to do something for this country and for the world. Either by teaching farmers how to do organic farming or by educating children or by doing theatre they are doing something good. I think that meeting these people and being in a school like Poorna has been a good thing because when you’re thirteen and fourteen your mind takes in everything. That for me is the age where you really get influenced a lot, until about eighteen or so, or even until you are twenty, you got through a huge number of phases…you want to try every thing new that there is to try…it is an age where you find who you are as a person.

Being in Poorna has affected that change that took place in me…maybe I may not have been as concerned about energy conservation as I am today, maybe I would have been a lot more concerned with getting 90% in all my subjects…I might have been hell-bent on doing my engineering, maybe the decision to take the year-off would’ve been even harder to make had I been in another school…but one thing that I have noticed is that even though my friends and I all went to the same school, we are very, very different in our thinking and in our principles…I guess that your parents and the people you are with also do influence the way you are to some extent (so now you know who to blame!)

Now one problem that I had with the school was that some of the teachers still had that old-school thing about us being the students and them being the teacher and that there was a line between the two which could never be crossed. If you did cross it, it meant that you were rude and didn’t care for the teacher’s help and that you were disrespectful.

Another major problem was that sometimes there were things that we as students really wanted to do, like go for more inter-school events and sports meets and things like that…many of the teachers gave us no support in these things whatsoever. For example, it was very rare for them to let us miss a class to practise before a match but when we had to go for a science exhibition then we could miss an entire day because we were learning something…not always the case though!

The fact that science was given a lot of importance is something that really gets me. I don’t see why sports cannot be given as much importance as science because one does learn a lot of things while playing, things that can actually be applied on your everyday life – such as team work and giving and taking opportunities, learning diligence and patience and discipline…

So this gap-year that I am taking is a result of Poorna, and a result of this gap-year would hopefully be that a lot more doors would be opened to me in the choices that I make about my own future.

¬Zuri Camille

Zaeen

Zaeen is in Symbiosis College Pune, doing his BA and also a Diploma in Liberal Arts.

Sidharth T C

Siddharth TC did his P.U.C (science) from Presidency College, Bangalore and BBA LLb from Symbiosis Law School, Pune. He then worked with Dr.Kainth Associates, Bangalore. He is now with Universal Legal, Bangalore.

Govind T C

Govind TC did his P.U.C from Presidency College, then spent a year or so with his father in the business, before joining for BBM at CMS, Jain University. He finishes his course this April.

Jayanthi Joseph

Jayanthi Joseph finished her IGCSE in 2009. She received a scholarship at Mallya Aditi International School in Bangalore, where she finished her 12th. She will complete her A Levels in May 2012. She has received a music scholarship from Oregon State University, USA, where she plans to complete BSc degrees in music and biology.