‘I’M KNOWN AT WORK AS CONFIDENT’

At Mirambika Free Progress School, Delhi, there were no textbooks or uniforms. An English class could be each student talking about what they were reading.

“I remember discussing Charles Dickens,” says Rohan Jain (right), now 26. He had to shift schools because Mirambika then ended at Class 8.

At the new school, everyone sat in rows, wearing uniforms. “It all felt so alien,” Jain says.

“Children asked for permission to enter the class… why would you need to ask to enter a space that is yours?”

Jain now works as manager of the innovations and exponential impact team at non-profit Charities Aid Foundation India.

The fact that he thinks differently is still noticed all the time, sometimes positively and occasionally negatively too.

“When I joined, I advised the company to reuse the runoff from an RO machine,” he says. “I know people were surprised, but I’m glad I could think about it when nobody else had and it’s these small things that tell people that a person is different.”

I think I feel the difference every day, he adds.

“I am confident and outgoing and I find it easier to speak with seniors because that’s the way we were moulded in at Mirambika. With classes of just six kids, we were always making friends with seniors, so age and designation are not barriers to me.”