The tree cannot grow without its roots.One learns a thing only when it interests him.This interest is generated by the values one nurtures.Different people,different values. But clearer the values, easier the learning.

   Syamantak is based on natural teaching. No one teaches children theories of how to grow better. Enrollment to open schooling keeps them with other school going children. They learn it through tasks on basis of daily needs. How to calculate their cow feed through volume formulas of cylindrical object teaches them mathematics, discussions and community living social sciences and daily practices of cooking, repairing things, solar cooking and maintaining a farm teaches them sciences. But understanding and channelizing the energy requires vision. Not only vision it also needs courage and an attitude to accept the new parameters of life. This task is headed by Sachin Desai, the brain behind the Syamantak.

   Sachin Desai  did his bachelor’s from University of Mumbai in Hotel Management. Placed as Manager in Baskin n Robbins,he worked there for some time and chased his passion to work on the loopholes in the  education system.He along with a partner developed a learning utility software that helped children to understand things better.The tool was a big hit for schools as it was  newly launched and the computer evolution was at embryonic stage. His business flourished well in central India. He married in Bhopal and lived with his wife Meenal and daughter Mrunalini. But, now the things changed. Being a victim of education system himself during childhood, he wanted to grow his child , letting her learn freely, with him, channelizing her energies in the right way. The decision was very challenging. Not enrolling a child to school is more fearful than fighting with the marine commandos. It needed courage, expertise as well as a strong vision towards handling things. With advice from his guruji and grandfather, in 2007 he shifted from his Bhopal flat to his ancestral house closed for last 80 years. Now the real test satarted.  How to teach Mrunalini. Teaching alone would be teaching isolation. With advice and thinking, they decided to adopt orphan children. But, this time they took another challenge. They chose the children who were declared troublemakers or mentally retarded from the orphanages. Highly energetic children could keep the environment up and dumb ones could learn from them. This way, the energy of the challenging children was channelized to perform demanding yet productive tasks to build Syamantak and love it for their efforts and learnings.With that Syamantak School Without walls started.

I heard about this place during Jagriti Yatra and started wondering what a place like this could be.Reaching Mumbai on 8th,spending 2 days deciding to go back to Jammu or board Konkan railways to a place totally unknown to me.With a book in hand bought from GOONJ in Delhi whose 1st page said "everything that is to be learnt is to be learnt the hard way".Hard way or simple one,i simply jumped to the railway station supported by my friend Sumit Sapolia and boarded a train at 11 to an unknown place called Kudal in south Maharashtra.

  Syamantak was 12 km from Kudal in Dhamapur village.With a big bag and an observing aura,I entered the konkan belt.With the beautiful breeze,bamboo grass and a lot of coconut trees on the road side,I felt a real adventure.On the directions provided,i reached Vengurla to start with event NAI TALIM and after 7 days with Syamantak family to the Home.

  Now, the real adventure started. Firstly,the place was very beautiful and secondly,i had no idea what to do there.With no aim or vision, simply on my inner instinct,i had boarded the train to the place and was just going with the flow. I forgot to ask myself, what I will do there. Being no one,i preferred listening over showing my achievements and tried to understand whatever i faced. The first thing was my fear of not getting involved in the conversation by not speaking anything, it pacified. My fear of losing my career, it too. The last was the fear of falling in love with the place and working there forever. I had planned for 5 days,yet without much notice spent 2 months. Every day was a challenge, everyday a new learning.The school was based on experiential learning over learning and then going for skills.My half learnt engineering failed,i didn't feel much dissatisfied as the skills of many professional engineers failed there while trying to show off.I never felt like being in an organisation or a school but it was a home that educated the children by developing it,simple fact being 'charity begins at home'. With few workshop and mechanic’s tools, they created things of basic utilities from chair to wheel barrows.

  We know that organic matter decomposes but never put much thought about it. There, with trees across the road and in the backside, they collected dry leaves to accumulate them and produced vermi-compost with the help of earthworms. They sold the product in brick form to various organic farmers for least dependency on donations. Even the human waste was utilized as the toilets were connected to a biogas plant which supplied fuel to the kitchen for food and flowed slurry to the garden next to it. The vegetable waste was furthered utilized for manure formation. The rice and dal were cooked in a solar cooker maintained by the children…..to be continued.