Through the Bus Windows Nivi Nimmagadda

My community can be seen through a window on a bus ride from my school back home. Safely tucked away in an air-conditioned bus, I glance out the window to see the world for what it really is.

The world beyond that window has shown me more than just irksome Bangalore traffic and it’s chaotic honking of horns, it’s shown me underprivileged girls with raggedy backpacks slung across their shoulders, rushing out of a government school. In the seven years, I’ve spent looking out of that window, I’ve seen Hindu parades and heard the afternoon prayers from the speakers of a Mosque. While gazing past the glass, I saw a man step forward to help a woman who was being disrespected. I’ve seen beggars cupping their arms pleading for a rupee or two.

When the bus had broken down and a glass window was no longer separating me from the streets of Bangalore, I bought forty pieces of gum from a small, rickety shack while waiting for a new bus. And I handed the gum out to the kids I’d seen rush out from the government school every afternoon for the past seven years.

These experiences throughout the countless bus rides are what inspired me to give my all to the girls I teach at a government school, it’s what inspired me to raise money for a surgery...