An ingenious teacher in a small tribal town on India’s eastern coast has turned walls into blackboards and lanes into classrooms, attempting to overcome the learning gap caused by the country’s protracted school closures.

For the past year, Deep Narayan Nayak, a 34-year-old teacher in the tribal village of Joba Attpara in the Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal’s eastern state, has painted blackboards on the walls of houses and taught youngsters on the streets. After tight Covid-19 limitations were introduced across the country in March 2020, the local school was closed.