We have been waiting for Shivaji a long time. This is Shivaji Godhraj, a gentleman who works hard and quietly in the hilly terrain of Dhadgaon Nandurbar District , Maharashtra.
I have been particularly wanting to bring Shivaji to Goa to share our library work with him as he works with an organisation Janarth that works with ZP schools and Ashram Shaala schools in Dhadgaon and the possibility of igniting ideas for library work, never fail to excite me.
Finally in January 2014, we received a mail from Shivaji saying he would come. I was so happy and could not wait to share our work with him.
Shivaji arrived on a late evening bus from Pune and was shepherded by Niju through out his stay in Goa. We immersed Shivaji immediately into our work world. He did school trips in the early part of the morning – setting off to different villages and interacting with diverse and multiple groups of children.
Shivaji played the role of observer, participant, teacher educator, story prop, advisor, reviewer , admirer among many other roles. The children always welcomed him and that for me is the most enduring part of working with story. Grace comes into the story atmosphere, one cannot be rude, hard, unmindful, distant if one is a story gatherer or a story listener or a story lover and many of our children and community are this thanks to the Libraries in School Program.
In the afternoons we spent time with Shivaji at the Mother House – the library in Taleigao where we stock, store and organise our collections and also enable residents of the area to come read, browse, spend time in the library. Shivaji keenly watched and observed these interactions as well and browsed books in the our collection.
In the evenings as we do, we set off for our Mobile Outreach sessions and I think here Shivaji really had moments and opportunities to deeply interact with the children. He was often sitting with one child reading together while another was awaiting his/ her turn with Shivaji. Shivaji quickly got into the flow of work and gave children written tasks filled with humour and interest. He made so many hearts and heads glad with his presence and his genuine admiration and acceptance of our ways and our world.
We were blessed to have Shivaji visit us, he left something gentle, calm and knowing behind and we will hold onto it until her comes back as he promised to do.