This Andhra govt school has an unlikely ‘student’ - a langur named Lakshmi

The government’s primary school at the dusty village of Vengalampalli in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district generally has not many visitors, let alone officials of the education department.

Even 60-odd students in the school do not come to the school regularly due to poor infrastructure and lack of enough teaching staff – there are hardly two teachers including the headmaster, Syed Abdul Lateef Khan.

But, for the last two weeks, there has been a regular visitor to the school. She attends all classes studiously, browses through textbooks, plays with students and even shares the lunch provided to them.

No, she is not yet another student, but a two-year-old female grey langur, that has become a star attraction for the school now.

“It appears to have come from the nearby forests of Peapully block. We were told there were three langurs that entered the human habitations and were moving around a local transport office premises. Two of them died in an accident recently and this one escaped entered our school,” Khan told Hindustan Times.

Though the students, all in the age group of five to 10 years studying up to Class 5, were initially scared of the animal, it soon made friends with them on day one itself. “They are calling her “Lakshmi” and she instantly responds to their calls,” the headmaster said.

The langur has been behaving well right from day one. She attends the morning prayers, enters the class of its choice, sits along with the other students and browses through their textbooks without troubling anyone. “If she finds any image on any page interesting, she puts her hand on the page and watches the image carefully, before moving to other pages,” Khan said.

“We even gave her a piece of chalk to test whether she can scribble something on the blackboard. But she put it in her mouth. We took it back immediately, as it might cause trouble to her stomach if she swallows it,” he said.

Initially, the teachers thought regular visits by langur would be a distraction for students. So, they closed the classroom doors to prevent her from entering the class. But Lakshmi did not budge and sat near the window, holding its grills, listening to the lessons. “After that, we have never put any restrictions for her,” Khan said.

While the students are served with mid-day meals, the school is now procuring fruits including bananas for Lakshmi to have lunch along with other students.

And the langur’s arrival brought a lot of good for the school. “Now, we have 100 percent attendance, thanks to Lakshmi,” the headmaster said.