What if your very first day of school came not at age 4 or 5, but at 70 or even 90? Sounds unusual, right? But, in a small village in Maharashtra’s Thane, this is exactly what has been happening for nearly a decade now. Every afternoon, grandmothers draped in bright pink sarees walk to class, school bags in their hands and dreams in their eyes.

Welcome to Aajibaichi Shala, the Grandmothers’ School, where learning has no age limit. The journey began in March 2016 on International Women’s Day when a group of elderly women expressed a heartfelt desire, “We want to read religious texts ourselves." Local zilla parishad teacher and activist Yogendra Bangar heard them and decided to open a school for them, according to an Instagram post.

With help from the Motiram Dalal Charitable Trust, Bangar

See Full Page