Best of Both Worlds
Twelve-year-old Premlal and his friends spend hours every day in the paddy fields of their village Bhinjain, in southern Bihar’s Chakai block. It’s the monsoon season and to entertain themselves, the children catch fish using an age-old technique of blocking water in paddy fields by putting up barriers. The water is then drained out, leaving behind large puddles—and since fish reach the fields with rainwater during the monsoons, children can easily catch them.
This technique is common in the Santhal community that Premlal is a part of. Santhals are a Scheduled Tribe largely concentrated in Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura, Odisha, and West Bengal.
In another Santhal village, Govindpur, Santhal youth are volunteering to teach children in their indigenous language (Santhali) to help them better relate to subjects taught in government schools. In addition to academics, the lessons taught will also help keep alive traditional practices such as fish-catching in the monsoons.