In a crumbling corner of the Batla House Pahalwan Chauraha, nestled among the narrow lanes lives Mohd. Faizan. He was no older than five with hair that curled like questions and eyes that carried stories too heavy for his small shoulders. Impoverished and raised by the narrow alleys and faded blue tarpaulin sheets of the jhuggi-jhopdi cluster, Faizan’s world was a patchwork of survival, chappatis shared with neighbors, rainwater leaking through the roof, and dreams buried under the dust. But even in the darkest corners of the city, hope has a way of knocking.
One morning, as Faizan crouched outside a tea stall playing with his friends, he notices a lady in black abaya and white scarf. Her name was Foziya, the Director of the Shaagird Foundation. She didn’t ask many questions, just smiled and said, “Do you want to come to our learning center? It’s called Bi Amma.
At first, Faizan was unsure. What did he know of learning? He had only heard of schools from others, places with uniforms and homework. The next day, he followed her. Bi Amma Learning Center was not a school with marble floors or iron gates. It was a room filled with sunlight and painted walls.
There were other children too some shy, some loud, but all like him. They sat on mats in circles, learning letters and numbers that added up to more than just sums. There was laughter here. Stories. And most precious of all attention.
Every day, Faizan returned, his heart, once stained with heaviness now griped with happiness. Hindi stories made him giggle, and English words felt like magic spells. When he answered a question correctly, the claps of his teacher Asna felt louder than the chaos outside.
The world has not changed outside his jhuggi, but something inside Faizan has. The Bi Amma learning center has become his island in a restless sea, a place where he is not just a child of the slum, but a learner, a dreamer, maybe even… a future teacher, like Asna.
He family is still struggling to meet ends, his father is a rag picker, who picks rags in the hope that one day Faizan fulfills his dreams. In the little classroom with painted walls and open arms, Faizan has found something just as healing, belonging, and a dream to learn and open doors of opportunities for him in future.
And so, in the narrowest alleys of the Batla House, Pahalwan Chawk, beneath sheets of plastic and hope, Faizan’s story has began’ not with a grand twist of fate, but with a pencil, a smile, and a place called Bi Amma learning center.
Because sometimes, all it takes to change a life is someone to say, “Come in, We’ve been waiting for you.”
