On an annual visit to a local madarsa in the backwaters of Bihar, the maulana from UP was surprised to see two Hindu boys, aged three and five, attired in a topi. (cap) reading Urdu .... "When he learnt their names, he wanted to meet me," exults their grandfather Vidya Bhusan Singh, currently general secretary of the state unit of the Samajwadi Party.

A strange lesson for the Maulana, yes. But for Singh, there seems to be nothing amiss in his decision. The ex-MLA has been sending his two grandsons to the local madarsa instead of the village primary school in Gopalganj district for a long time now.

Initially, there was a hue and cry in the Rajput community from which he hails in Meera Tola-Khetapur village of Gopalganj's Baikunthpur block. "We had to face relentless taunts from the villagers. They even said we were converting to Islam," the ex-MLA told.

But that was then. Today. Singh's experiment has borne fruit and there has been a sea change in the attitude of the villagers. "Today, about 70 ehildren belonging to the Hindu community study in the same madarsa which has a total strength of about 400. The Head Maulvi did not object to Hindu children studying in the madarsa," he said.

But why did he send his grandsons to the madarsa for primary education? Only because the village government primary school was virtually defunct, Singh pointed out." The primary school has two teachers. Each draws a fat salary of over Rs 10,000 per month. But the two are always absent ... Singh does not think that sending his grandsons to the madarsa intrudes on his religion.

"On the contrary, they will have a better perception of their own and other's religion," he stressed pointing out that the madarsa in his village must be the only one in the state in which so many Hindu children study. Interestingly, this has been a learning experience for the grandfather too. "I have tried to learn the Urdu script from my grandsons ... " he said.(Source: The Times of India, 12 September, 2000)