Shripanchama - the birth festival of Saraswati, Hindu goddess of wisdom

A plate of red powder - akshata - is mixed with rice and banana. The pupils have washed and sliced apples. Oranges, bananas, sweets, flowers and incense are layed out on the table. First the teachers at BST Higher Secondary School come and put tikkas on the picture of the Hindu goddess of Wisdom, Saraswati. This festival, Shripanchama, celebrates her birthday. The table is blessed, songs are sung, and teachers laugh and call 'photo! photo!' as they have tikka pasted onto their forehead. Students queue to mark their respect, then queue in the playground for tikka from Debbie Ma'am before returning to the puja table for prasad (puja food) distributed in squares of newspaper. Smog hangs over the city today under the warm blue sky. Beyond the concrete jungle of the school yard and buildings a I see a misty outline of tree-covered hills; above me a red kite circles effortlessly. The playground is full of laughter and chatter. From outside the school's blue metal security gate comes the cacophony of noise from a street band and children charge across the dusty playground to the gate from where they crush to peer through to the even dustier street beyond.

I eat prasad with my fingers from a square of newspaper. It's hot on my hand, so I scoop it up with slices of apple. Finally the puja table is cleared, the plates taken for washing and puja is over. A few children remain in the playground, kicking balloons and playing together. The men teachers sit in the middle of the concrete field on blus stools; black hair, black jackets and grey shoes; they talk with animated hand gestures. The women stand apart in colourful pinks, blues, reds, orange, white and yellow, laughing and talking together. 'If we go to talk with them, they mock us,' says one female teacher. 'This is the way it is here.'