New Delhi, Oct. 25 -- The compost is dark-brown at the edges, black in the centre, still damp from the monsoon night. When I dig my fingers in, it breaks and catches the first light like new topsoil.

As I lift out a tray of compost, Bharath Balaji Sathiyamoorthy, engineer-turned-teacher, walks over, points to the chamber I'm clearing, and says quietly, "That one's mine." He thanks me and steps away.

Around us, students keep working: trays slide out, buckets scrape, a couple of voices compare colour and texture. The smell is sharp but not unpleasant-soil after rain. Small, regular mounds form behind the dorm. It looks like maintenance work. Here, it is the curriculum.

It is 2 October, Gandhi Jayanti. It's one of the two mornings each ye...