In a world where four people living in a one-BHK (Bedroom-Hall-Kitchen) is considered living in a ‘congested’ manner, this family of nine lives in a single room, in Borivali, Mumbai. The head of the family does not work and the lady of the family, sells vegetables. Not heeding the various population control advertisements, the couple, after migrating to Mumbai from Gorakhpur, gave birth to eight children. The eldest girl got married recently and has gone to Gorakhpur to live with her husband and now three daughters and four sons remain. This article is about Renu, the eldest of the remaining lot.
She studied in an evening school till her eighth standard and then quit. When asked in front of her parents about why she did that, she gave a muted response. On further questioning, she replied, with head staring at the floor, “I’m not interested in studying.”
“She does not want to study. That’s her problem. How many times do we tell her to go to school?”, boomed her father and was aptly seconded by his wife. Renu was an above average student and managed to pass her eight standard exams with ease. It is not often that such a student would lose interest in studies, unless there is something else that the girl can spend her time on. And Renu had no such avenues to let out her energy. All she did the whole day was cook for the entire family, and keep the house clean. This is not the sort of childhood any girl would prefer over studying.
We had to literally take her out of the house and cajole her for an hour before she opened up. “You think my father really means what he said? Far from it! He thinks studying is a waste of time. I quit school because we are too poor to afford my education anymore. True, the fee is just Rs 170 per year, but it does not end with that. Along with the fee, comes the cost of the books, the uniforms, then the fee for the term papers. And all this is too much for my family to afford, considering I have two younger sisters and four younger brothers who are in school.” More sordid details followed. “My father comes home drunk every night. He doesn’t work and he beats up everyone if he is angry.” Where does he get the money from? “His friends take him along and occasionally he takes it from mom.”
Ah! There came the truth. The story so typical of many a poor young Indian girl, born into a big family and suffering silently so that her siblings could study further. In any case her life, figuratively speaking, would end once she got married. The rest of her life would be spent slaving in her husband’s house, giving birth to more babies.
But we were determined not to let her discontinue her studies. We spoke to her for long periods of time day after day and stressed the need for completing at least a tenth standard. Eventually she agreed to join school, but also wanted to work. Since her school was only in the evenings, she wanted to work in the morning so that she could at least pay off her school expenses and not listen to her mother grumbling everyday of how she was a liability to the family. We promised to find her some work.
The problem was that we could not go ahead and outrightly finance her education. This would lead to a clamour of requests from the other people in the basti and estrange them if we refused assistance. Not that spending money on their kids’ education was something tough for us, but that would create a situation wherein people would simply put in requests, take the money and forget about their children’s education.
But having seen the case of Renu, we could not be passive for long. We took her to her school, a bright, big municipal school in the vicinity, and spoke to her teacher. The elderly person said that her name had still not been struck off the rolls (The school had started two months back) and that she could still join, but would have to cover up for a lot of lost time. Second hand text books from her seniors would not be useful as the syllabus had changed and so she had to procure new textbooks. We thanked the teacher, spoke to him in private about Renu’s family situation, and asked him to help her cover up for the lost time.
On the way back, we got the girl her new textbooks and the smile on her face was the reward that we got for the work.
But the deed was not yet done. We spoke to her mom about this and she pointed a finger at her husband who was sitting across the road in a tea stall. He didn’t seem too excited, when we told him that he will have to pay the term fee of Rs 85 and that we have got her the textbooks. Though he said “Don’t worry. I’ll do anything to see my daughter get educated,” the pain in his face was evident.
As we left the house amidst “thank you teacher” and “Good night teacher”, we could not help musing on how much work lay ahead of us. With respect to this girl alone, we still have to make sure that she goes to school regularly, has a conducive atmosphere to study, and more importantly, does not quit again next year, and eventually goes to a decent job. With respect to the many other such girls in India, this cycle has to repeated and for that we need people working in the grassroot level, people who can spend time and not just in signing cheques, but in going physically to the bastis, the tribal lands, the villages, and convincing the people about the importance of education.
But as of now, as the Mumbai rain started to pour down on us, it didn’t matter much. A great poet said “Into everyone’s life some rain should fall”. DreamIndia is happy to have brought that rain into Renu’s life. And we hope her monsoon stays with her forever.
She studied in an evening school till her eighth standard and then quit. When asked in front of her parents about why she did that, she gave a muted response. On further questioning, she replied, with head staring at the floor, “I’m not interested in studying.”
“She does not want to study. That’s her problem. How many times do we tell her to go to school?”, boomed her father and was aptly seconded by his wife. Renu was an above average student and managed to pass her eight standard exams with ease. It is not often that such a student would lose interest in studies, unless there is something else that the girl can spend her time on. And Renu had no such avenues to let out her energy. All she did the whole day was cook for the entire family, and keep the house clean. This is not the sort of childhood any girl would prefer over studying.
We had to literally take her out of the house and cajole her for an hour before she opened up. “You think my father really means what he said? Far from it! He thinks studying is a waste of time. I quit school because we are too poor to afford my education anymore. True, the fee is just Rs 170 per year, but it does not end with that. Along with the fee, comes the cost of the books, the uniforms, then the fee for the term papers. And all this is too much for my family to afford, considering I have two younger sisters and four younger brothers who are in school.” More sordid details followed. “My father comes home drunk every night. He doesn’t work and he beats up everyone if he is angry.” Where does he get the money from? “His friends take him along and occasionally he takes it from mom.”
Ah! There came the truth. The story so typical of many a poor young Indian girl, born into a big family and suffering silently so that her siblings could study further. In any case her life, figuratively speaking, would end once she got married. The rest of her life would be spent slaving in her husband’s house, giving birth to more babies.
But we were determined not to let her discontinue her studies. We spoke to her for long periods of time day after day and stressed the need for completing at least a tenth standard. Eventually she agreed to join school, but also wanted to work. Since her school was only in the evenings, she wanted to work in the morning so that she could at least pay off her school expenses and not listen to her mother grumbling everyday of how she was a liability to the family. We promised to find her some work.
The problem was that we could not go ahead and outrightly finance her education. This would lead to a clamour of requests from the other people in the basti and estrange them if we refused assistance. Not that spending money on their kids’ education was something tough for us, but that would create a situation wherein people would simply put in requests, take the money and forget about their children’s education.
But having seen the case of Renu, we could not be passive for long. We took her to her school, a bright, big municipal school in the vicinity, and spoke to her teacher. The elderly person said that her name had still not been struck off the rolls (The school had started two months back) and that she could still join, but would have to cover up for a lot of lost time. Second hand text books from her seniors would not be useful as the syllabus had changed and so she had to procure new textbooks. We thanked the teacher, spoke to him in private about Renu’s family situation, and asked him to help her cover up for the lost time.
On the way back, we got the girl her new textbooks and the smile on her face was the reward that we got for the work.
But the deed was not yet done. We spoke to her mom about this and she pointed a finger at her husband who was sitting across the road in a tea stall. He didn’t seem too excited, when we told him that he will have to pay the term fee of Rs 85 and that we have got her the textbooks. Though he said “Don’t worry. I’ll do anything to see my daughter get educated,” the pain in his face was evident.
As we left the house amidst “thank you teacher” and “Good night teacher”, we could not help musing on how much work lay ahead of us. With respect to this girl alone, we still have to make sure that she goes to school regularly, has a conducive atmosphere to study, and more importantly, does not quit again next year, and eventually goes to a decent job. With respect to the many other such girls in India, this cycle has to repeated and for that we need people working in the grassroot level, people who can spend time and not just in signing cheques, but in going physically to the bastis, the tribal lands, the villages, and convincing the people about the importance of education.
But as of now, as the Mumbai rain started to pour down on us, it didn’t matter much. A great poet said “Into everyone’s life some rain should fall”. DreamIndia is happy to have brought that rain into Renu’s life. And we hope her monsoon stays with her forever.
PS: Support us, not by signing checks, but by identifying Renus and helping them study. Education is the answer to most of India's evils and we at DreamIndia, are striving hard to educate underprivileged children. Visit www.dreamindia2020.org for more details.
2 comments:
The tough question is when are we going to find such grass root level workers....Personal family needs comes in...only the day the broad vision of "whole world is my family" becomes way of life..we would have such people....
glad to see the hard work put in by you guys...Anbudan,
hi varun,i saw u in manavya(dhoom) 2 weeeks back....... even b4 cming to manavya........... i had joined dream india.......... was going thru the site for the fotos...... saw the blog spots created by u guys.......... the articles are fantastic............ especially the for this little girl renu u have brought back her happiness given her a new life.
hats off to u guys............
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