when soumya sengupta a zestful 38yearold looked into the camera and decided to hum boli o nanadi aar du mutho chaal phele de haritey he wasnt really rapping about the proverbial soninlaw but was using the rapid rhythm of this santhali folk tune to demonstrate the lifesaving technique of cardiopulmonary resuscitation you have to do 100 chest compressions in a minute but if you cant keep count pump to the tempo of this song he explained bent over a cpr mannequin in a makeshift set at home made to look like a classroomsenguptas performance was for an unseen audience of thousands of children in bengal watching him on television everyday when the pandemic shut down schools and sparked a boom in online learning this primary school teacher from radhanagar a village in bengals bishnupur vowed to not let students in his remote village with little or no access to the internet or smart devices be cheated out of their educationso he took school lessons over to the television airwaves the call for using tv as an educator may sound feeble in a world moving towards the virtual but sengupta was determined to harness its power to keep rural homebound students engaged in learning during the pandemic the internet doesnt have much reach here and very few have smartphones but 60 percent of our school children have cable television at home explained sengupta after much convincing he roped in the local cable channel negotiated an hours slot at rs18000 a month pooled in funds and called on the charm and expertise of an eclectic band of people literary scholars scientists doctors psychologists and environmentalists alongside local magicians puppeteers and folk artistes into daily telecasting of learning material what started as a local exercise midjune is now helping fill the void left by the lockdown and lack of digital infrastructure for children across bengal who tune in for an hour of televised schooling everydaythe show titled khelte khelte lekha pora porte porte khela learning while playing playing to learn is not a traditional classroom but a homegrown experiment that doesnt organise learning by age the lessons a permutationcombination of content draw heavily from bengals oral traditions nature and the performing arts to help children comprehend their textbook knowledge of science maths literature and basic life skills the initiative has also offered fresh impetus to schoolteachers across the state namely bankura howrah midnapore and purulia districts to engage with students over stories and lessons filmed from their study table terrace or the woods that sengupta stitches together for television my laptop is slow but fortunately i have a smartphone where i could quickly download an app learn some editing and seek help from friends after the cable tv operator whod do it for us tested covid positive says sengupta who has spent nine hours everyday planning filming and editing 63 episodes till dateto make the lessons less passive sengupta taught himself the techniques of multicamera