Principal. Teacher. Caretaker. All at once. Shri Sunil Pangare is the principal of Z.P. Primary School Turmad, and one of three teachers on staff. Officially the school board lists him as Mukhyadhyapak , Head Teacher, but the title barely covers what he actually does. On most mornings he is the first to arrive, opening the gate, sweeping the courtyard, settling the children before the bell. In the afternoons, long after lessons end, he stays back to prepare the next day's work. The school does not stop when class does. For Sunil sir, it rarely stops at all.

He has served Z.P. Primary School Turmad for several years now, through every season and every stage of the school's growth. The leaders' portraits that line the senior classroom wall, the kitchen garden the children tend for their mid-day meal, the Preamble framed by the door, the handprints of every child pressed into paint on the dining wall, all of these carry his touch in some way. The forty-five children who walk in from Tuksai every morning are Adivasi children from a village that the world largely passes by. Sunil sir does not pass by. He shows up, every day, with two colleagues, and builds something that will outlast all of them.

“The children of this village deserve the same as any child anywhere.”