The marathon runner is now running full pelt.

15th November.

So tired from travelling I sleep so soundly. Bang! its the loudest bang I don't want to hear when I am fast asleep. It announces the festival of Chhath, the Bihari faiths holy day. Bless them and their bang.

I meet with Kittu and his lovely wife Neetu, have puris and veg curry for breakfast. Its a beautiful sunny day, the sort of temp you get on a hot English morning. The air is sweet with the sound of laughing children.

Over breakfast Kitu explains the history, I seem to have got bits wrong, not that it matters.

The Divine Onkar Mission, was started in 1995. All money is raised from England by the octogenarian Mr Lal, based in Leicester. They originaly started doing cataract operations in a tent, now they have within the school complex a simple but highly effective surgical room with wards for post op patients.Last year they carried out 1500 operations on local peoples' eyes. Mr SK Jain an eye surgeon lives in the next city Rangee, he manages 50+ a day. Medicine, protective goggles, the patients lodgings, their food and a blanket each are all paid for by the Divine Onkar Mission, they receive no money from the Indian Government for this local care. All the eye ops are carried out in the winter as there is less likely a chance of infection.

They also care for, feed, clothe and educate 215 full time boarders, all local children, many are orphans, some are handicapped, but its all multi denominational, it has no boundaries. It also educates a further 500 day school children from local families again without funds from government. When they leave at 17 they have such a good name that local businesses recruit them to work for them.

Happiness prevails everywhere I am overwhelmed by the joy of the children, they wash their own clothes in an open sink.After each meal each child washes their own metasl tali dish. Most play team games similar to those I played when yound. Games like "cat and mouse" tig and tag game, they have shoes but play bare foot in a large earth quadrangle. Because of the holiday there are no formal lessons, but they all have to be checked in to make sure no one is missing. I must add that there is no school uniform.

The school block, a flat roofed concrete building is on two floors and encloses the quad on three sides. There is a boys teaching block and dorm, with the same for the girls. There is a cooking area with an open enclosure with coal fired fires for making flat bread. They make a 1000 rotis at a time. They have a significant number of mouths to feed all the 215 children, plus the staff,  three times a day, all vegetarian food all organic most from their own farm.

I visit the farm, half an hours drive away, wow if there was somewhere that you would want to be its here, high up on a plateau, its cool, sunny and very yummy the air is clean and scented so unlike the shit smell of Kolkota.. The farm produces potatoes, cauliflowers, aubergines, chillis and long radish like moolis. They are growing guava trees. In the garden I taste the purple leafed bush, its cloves. Large butterflies the size of playing cards dance lazily in the sun, yellow with black spots, brown with white flashes a large fuzzy black and red thing flies bout, it might be a bee? They have a sidari bush, its fruit is like a very hairy red gooseberry, when opened its tiny fruit when crushed release this marigold coloured juice, it stains my fingers. Its used to mark the forehead on religious occasions. I am given a small banana.

This banana is half the size of a supermarket type. It tastes like nothing I have tasted before, its scented like a rose at the first bite, a tart taste fills my mouth then the sweetness of the banana. It was a real magic moment, like tasting premier cru chablis for the first time.

On the way back I see hundreds of men all in small groups of 2/3s in single file, backs at 45 degrees pushing bicycles laden down and balanced with heavy sacks of domestic coal straddling their cross bars, these must be several hundredweights, these hills are steep with a 5 mile slope, this is back breaking. I suppose they are in for one hell of a ride down. I admire their determination and guts.

Back at the school the girls sing me songs,  including " we shall overcome" I think of Aung San Suu Kyi.
One of the young girls is called Parvati, her eyes are hazel brown. QED.

The boys show me their class rooms, large cool rooms, but with no posters or individuality. These kids are so polite, they all ask me "Uncle what is this, what is that, where do you live, in what sort of house?" Many speak good English, their is a real honest friendship in their eyes towards each other, dont get me wrong Angels they are not, but our English society we could learn a thing or two.

I am shown a new project a few hundred yards away, its block to teach BA students, from outside the area, a fund raiser I assume. I stand on the roof and half close my eyes, the distant shapes could be England. Where there would be tall oaks, wheat fields and blackthorn hedges, there are in reality ashoka and mango trees and rice fields, but the atmosphere is the same.Across in the haze a herd of large black bufalo graze.

Back at the school I have packed for my departure, I join the school in the dining room for roll call. The girls have all changed into salwa chamis and frocks, the boys dont seem to notice. They all start singing songs to me, I am choking up its not what I expected, as I leave to go they all wave me good bye and say "goodbye uncle".

Its back on the train to Kolkota, what a downer.