Ganjam District

The front yard of the Grisola Modal UP School in Chikidi Block, our first visit for the day

Mother India and Gandhij form the welcome committee

A picture of the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru and a list of Indian PMs across the neighboring door

Headmaster Niranjam Mallik has the tough task of running a school of Telugu and Oriya speakers with most printed material in Oriya

The two computer teachers at Girisola, both had their first ever computer experiences on Linux-running PCs

Because of an even split of Telugu and Oriya speakers, the school runs two parallel sets of classes

Some lifestyle advice at the Headmaster's office in Girisola

A VEC member guides the children around the game

Learning to use a mouse

The photo of the computer center inauguration ceremony kept prominently near the computers

Short of teachers, the class monitor is often left with the fun job of keeping everyone in place and working on assignments

Collaborative learning: multiple sets of hands come together on the keyboards

Kids consult the local whiz for little question-mark

Twins from Class 5 have fun together

Three kids very involved in an Oriya grammar CD

A young girl enjoys her tiffin -- this school has no mid-day meals for its

The Class 5 Telugu section tries hard to keep a straight face through the photo session

The Telugu section of Class 6 sits outside rotating space wiht the Oriya group

Class 1 kids being taught the Oriya alphabet with slates

The VEC president is a Telugu speaker

On the wet Ganjam highways - heading off towards the second school at Raghunathpur further inland from the Andhra border

A list of the VEC members and recent contributions to the school, pasted over the headmaster's seat

At the Raghunathpur School, heavy rains with a wild rush of air, causing a minor panic fear of cyclone, source of great devastation here

Headmaster Swami at Raghunathpur, a veteran of the education system, is months away from retirement - a poet and musician on the side

Children and their slates in Raghunathpur - since there was no electricity, we had to make do with classrooms

And Ma Durga graces the entrance of computer center

The triad of Oriya gods here - Lord Jagannath, Goddess Subhadra, and Lord Balabhadra

Teachers here also grapple with the Telugu-Oriya problem - here classes are in Oriya, and most students are Telugu

The HM of the school was an arts aficionado, who had children perform the dance he wrote for the computer center inauguration

Teachers sing the song to which the children dance at Raghunathpur

On the lush road to Gopalpur - flat, speedy and devoid of traffic but for the overloaded Jeeps

The street along the beachfront in Gopalpur houses a few lodges, mostly used by visiting college kids from nearby cities

The Gopalpur state office has a board for digital wave information, defunct (not unlike in coastal TN villages)

Vendors sell "Jhaal Mudi" an east-Indian snack made of rice crisps, onions, peanuts, and mustard oil

At the seaside restaurant, Abhishek and Siddhant, district coordinators for Educomp await lunch

An ATM machine runs on a satellite connection in Gopalpur, mainly catering to tourists' cash needs

The DPEP chief for Ganjam, PC Pathy, sits under a picture of Biju Patnaik an iconic Nehruvian former chief minister of Orissa

A temple from a passing car and a terrible angle. Shamefully, in a trip to the land of temples, not one was visited during our work.

A street performer dressed as Hanuman asks for alms accompanied by musicians

The mask is big enough to blur most vision, so the performer has to be led by hand by his colleague

Coconuts for Rs.5 at a railway crossing from an expert cocounut cutter who specializes in chopping up in the few seconds you wait

The famous fruit slard of Behrampur, a Mewad specialty gently edging all over the country now