Suddenly one amongst the many neighbours listening intently to the conversation in the adjacent verandah interjected, “Several children from the forest went to the aashram” in Palghar “to study.” “Yes, many went,” reiterated a mother of now grown up children, adding, “Not only my five children but also those of my sister and six brothers-in-law. Almost all children from the pada went there to study up to 7th grade. Not much importance was given to education” prior to the 2000s “in our pada. But it is not like they studied only in a big school here!” Actually, five of her six brothers-in-law too went to study at the aashram. Taai, whose children were already studying in the aashram, opened their eyes saying, ‘What will you get by doing wood gathering and selling work? You children should also come along with us to the aashram.’ “So we went to study for seven years,” explained one brother-in-law, “and, during vacations, returned to the pada. Each vacation, I used to go to a madam’s house” located on SGNP’s outskirts “and request her to give me some work. With the money I earned, I used to buy pencils and head to the aashram. Seeing me and my siblings, other pada children realised that there was no point in gathering and selling wood. So they too—forty to fifty children—joined the aashram.” Aspirations to study picked up at the same time as the forest department disallowed adivasis from pursuing farming in SGNP during the 1990s.