The Nityaanand Marg Mumbai Public School in Koldongri sits atop a cemented hillock on Sahar Road in Andheri East. The evening traffic right outside it assaults our senses. As we pass through the school gates, the world goes quiet—a reprieve for our ringing ears set off by impatient drivers with feather-touch horns. At the end of the main corridor, we glimpse the doorway of the first night reading halls re-launched by the BMC after a lull of nearly eight years.

This is the school for children whose parents are employed in the manufacturing units and factories in neighbouring Chakala. On September 8, in conjunction with Vile Parle-based NGO Utkarsh Mandal, the BMC opened two reading halls, one for each gender, here. Ganpati Bappa flanks the corridor on the left, as if to bless students on their way to pursue knowledge. Mid-way stands a group of night school students, of all ages, speaking to a teacher. One of them is a man well into his 40s, with dishevelled hair and a grey-white checked shirt. “They also come here [to study] between 6 pm and 8 pm, along with day students,” explains Ganesh Chavan, the secondary school teacher in charge of the school.