Anirudh Bhat shares his experience & time with BSS

As cliché as it may sound, when I think of BSS, I am reminded of a comforting, nurturing space that felt like a second home to me. I am Anirudh, and I studied at BSS from 1st to 10th grade. I can confidently say that those 10 years of my life have shaped me into the person I am today.

As I reflect on my time at BSS, I am filled with gratitude for having learned various extracurricular activities, including farming, claywork, woodwork, handwork, and other art forms. This truly helped me by instilling patience, empathy, and other qualities that enabled me to operate effectively in group work.

Staying on a campus filled with great biodiversity, I developed a keen interest in wildlife. The environment taught me to love from the smallest of sand grains to the mightiest, gigantic trees. These valuable teachings made me aware of my practices that can harm the biosphere, and made me more cautious.

The ever-encouraging teachers restored confidence in me. Be it when I failed in sports or in academics, they always had my back and supported me in every way possible. I am extremely thankful to the teachers for fostering this confidence in me.

All the ‘sharing circles’ that we began having in high school taught me to be more open. It taught me to examine various perspectives before making decisions for myself. It showed me that there is no black and white in the world; it's almost always a shade of grey.

Leaving behind ten years of friendship wasn’t easy, since such bonds are rare today. But BSS had already taught me how to cherish the past while embracing the present—making it easier to build new friendships without losing the old ones in my heart.

Now that I've had exposure to various types of pedagogy, the exam free approach to teaching adopted by BSS benefitted me greatly. It taught me to learn the subject for what it truly was and not only to pass exams. I observed that when I had to write exams in my 11th and 12th grades, I began to study the subject only to pass the exams and not to extract joy from the insights I gained.

As of today, some of the things I greatly miss from my BSS days are definitely the free plays, the chatter in handwork classes, just the image of wooden shavings all over the floor communicating your hard work, the morning circles where our days began, and the home-like environment of BSS. These are just a few of the memories that come effortlessly to mind. If I were to reflect longer, I know the list would be endless—because BSS gave me far more than I can ever capture in words.

-Anirudh Bhat