The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Big trouble for small ones

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 19, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Big trouble for small ones

Bageshree S.

Bangalore: “Daag acche hain,” (Stains are good) goes an advertising line for a detergent brand. It may look cute on television with cherubic-looking children messing around in slush. But parents who have been struggling to get stains off the clothes of children this unrelenting rainy season have a different view on it.

“My daughter’s shoes and clothes are always a mess. I cannot wash them because they do not dry in this weather. At least with uniforms, I can iron them when they are partially dry. But what can you do with shoes, especially white canvas ones which is compulsory twice a week?” asks a harried Latha S., mother of eight-year-old Darshini.

Adding to the woes of children and parents is the increase in water and air-borne infections.

Eash Hoskote, paediatrician, says that upper respiratory infections are particularly high this season, which can worsen into a lower respiratory infection, if neglected. “One child sneezing in class can infect 10 others because it is an air-borne viral infection.” He normally advises a rest of three to five days, which does not go too well with some anxious parents who do not want their children to miss classes at any cost.

Absent children

“An average of eight children are absent in each class right now, while it is normally three or four,” says Therese Marie, principal of Stella Maris High School in Vyalikaval. The morning assembly and physical education classes are affected because playgrounds are slushy even when it is not raining, say many principals and teachers. Children are cooped up and restless. “We try to engage them in indoor games during PE classes,” says Sr. Marie.

The problem, though, is of an entirely different order for lakhs of children going to government schools across the State. “Our children are from the poorest of poor families. Most of them have no footwear, let alone shoes,” says Ramadevi, teacher in a government girls’ school in Yelahanka.

All parents, children and teachers seem to be in the mood to sing the good old nursery rhyme in unison this season: “Rain, rain go away…”

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka