Postcard from Kalathupatty — The Texas Scientist

ROOPA BINDINGNAVELE, Math Senior & Plan II Honors

Last summer, I spent a week in a rural Indian village surrounded by towering ice apple trees (a kind of palm tree). I was with a team following up on humanitarian efforts initiated four years prior by an engineering team of UT students. They’d built a children’s library in the village of Kalathupatty, where I and two fellow students, with support from the UT President’s Award for Global Learning, traveled to assess the impact of the library. We collected oral histories from residents to write a book exploring the evolution of education in the village and the community’s cultural history.

“It’s all so beautifully wild, and I love the sense of adventure it gives me to work in the rainforest.”

I’d been to India before, but never a remote region like this. The women there get married around or before 20, so the village kids were shocked that I was unmarried.

I have practiced the Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam since I was little. Teaching the kids some dances from a different region was a great way of connecting.

Through our interviews, we found that the library was a symbol of education. After it was built, there was an increase in the number of people going to college. This experience left me feeling more grateful for education and all of my opportunities, and I am thankful I could be a role model for the children I met.