It would be unfair to quote any one single study that links children carrying heavy school bags and related back problems — there are too many. Are our children ants, carrying nearly 30-40 percent of their weights on their tiny shoulders daily to attend school? Bad teaching and shabby school buildings are good enough reason that children find going to school uninspiring. Is it absolutely necessary to add a physical pain to this mental agony?

Private high end end schools offer school bus services and most often, parents have cars and domestic help that carry the burden off their pupils. And for recent developments, most of these school courses are taking the online path, introducing ICT and online course modules. Bags in these institutions are definitely getting lighter.

In retrospect, government public schools neither have computers, nor the very basic infrastructure like toilets and drinking water. Children travel miles in packed buses with loads of more than 5 kgs on their shoulders with conductors pushing them around or if lucky to sit, adults squeezing their tiny bodies into a corner to enjoy a slice of seat themselves.

Today, there was a eight or nine year old boy in the bus with a bag twice his size. As on any regular working day the BMTC bus was chock-a-block with human bodies glued to each other. He found it difficult to move in and being only a child, the only place he could manage to hold on to was the rod that surrounds the engine beside the driver. Fighting people who tried to push aside his huge bag, he managed to finally balance himself for his 40 minute journey to school.

In a matter of minutes, the conductor moved him to the window near the front door to clear his own passage, where he struggled again. The bag squeezed my knee, but I didn’t complain like my neighbour, who found the bag brushing on her saree annoying. I asked the kid for the bag. But prejudiced with previous reactions, he thought I was asking him to move as well. Looking at me helplessly, he started his struggle again. Evidently, his tiny body was worn out even before it reached school.

Finally, in my broken Kannada, I managed to convey my intentions. With disbelief, he dropped his bag on my lap. He wasn’t sure if I will be willing to hold it — it stood tall covering me completely till my face! It was surely more than 5 kgs heavy — which momentarily stopped blood flow to my thighs – and the child only about 20 kgs. Why would any child in his shoes be willing to attend any school? What pleasure does he experience traveling like this to a shabby government school, where there is neither learning nor love?

The entire experience took me back to my school days, where I was always encouraged to carry my own load to school. My spinal deformity undetected then, just caused minor pain on my upper shoulder. In my adolescent days, when the load started to lighten, the injuries that the school bag load caused were diagnosed. I now suffer severe nerve injuries on my left back, not curable any more.

Do we need more cases like these? Or can the government or at least teachers act now?

Debolina Sengupta