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Girls I Have Known - Supporting girls' education in India is vital.
It’s been several years, but I still remember her face. She was a teenager, thin and pale. She had come to the event hoping for a scholarship; I was one of the panel interviewing her. We volunteers had grouped into three panels to get through the students faster; the large hall was full of students waiting to be interviewed, and we had to leave by late afternoon to get back to the city by night. She had already been interviewed by one panel, who had sent her to us with a whispered aside that they weren’t sure what to make of her.
We had to choose the poorest and most deserving students, so we had to know not only about the student’s academic abilities and her (or his) ambitions, but also about her circumstances, to make sure she actually needed the money. To make sure that she would keep studying and not drop out to get married. Because there was only so much money to go around and we had to make sure we were using it well.
The questions were intrusive. We asked about her parents, her siblings. Her parents were both alive, she had a brother, they had a store in the village. She was doing well in school. She answered politely, but without emotion. On paper, the circumstances didn’t really hold up: we had others who seemed poorer; we should have moved on. But we felt we were missing something, so we probed deeper.
I explained to her, “We want to help you, but we need to know more. We need to be sure you need the help.” She hesitated, and then slowly told us more. It wasn’t a new story – a poor family, an alcoholic father. She had tears in her eyes.
As I placed her application in the acceptance file, I felt guilty for making her shred her dignity, the quiet reserve with which she had covered over her desperation.
I remember another girl, who came to one of our meetings in the city. She spoke with confidence and intelligence. Her marksheets spoke well of her abilities. But when we asked her where she lived so that our volunteers visit her at home and talk to her family, she hesitated. After a little coaxing, she revealed that she lived with her grandmother in the city’s red light area.
I spoke to one girl on the phone a few times. For the first couple of times, we struggled to find common ground. She wasn’t interested in movies. She liked reading, but hadn’t read a lot of books. She asked me about my work and asked for advice about getting a job. She was studying engineering, and she told me about a cooling system she had developed with her group. She said proudly that her teacher had said theirs was the best project in class.
Let me tell you just one more story. This was at another interview event at a small town school. We had already been at it for a few hours, when we were approached one of the teachers who was also a volunteer at the non-profit organization we were there for. He handed us the application of a girl and strongly recommended us accepting her. Her marks weren’t great, and she was late, which didn’t predispose her in our favour. But since the teacher was one of our best volunteers, we agreed to talk to her.
I went over to the back of the room to talk to her. She was even more hesitant than many of the shy young girls I had talked to. But she answered my questions. She told me she was the only child of her widowed mother. Her mother was a daily wage laborer. How did she manage to pay her school fees? I wondered. The girl replied that she paid her fees herself, by working in the fields during her vacations and holidays.
I thought of her moderate marks, and realized they weren’t low at all.
When I read about Women’s Web’s Girls Rock campaign, these were the girls I thought of. These young women who are doing so much with so little. Who inspire me and shame me at the same time.
They deserve more from us.
Today’s changemaker that we’d like to highlight is the Lila Poonawala Foundation, a Pune based trust that especially helps young women who have finished their schooling, and need additional funds to do their graduation or post-graduation. The grants offered by the trust came about as a realisation that even today, higher studies for women takes a backseat in many families that given a resource crunch, would prefer to set aside money for a son’s education or daughter’s marriage and dowry, rather than spending it on her education. In this situation, the trust is an attempt to support promising young women who would like to study further.
The foundation was set up by Lila Poonawalla, an early female entrant into an engineering career, and erstwhile CEO of Alfa Laval.
You can contribute to the trust’s corpus so that they can continue supporting many more worthy young women to study and pursue careers.
Pic credit: World Bank pics (Used under a Creative Commons license)
Unmana is interested in gender, literature and relationships, and writes about everything she's interested in. She lives in, and loves, Bombay. read more...
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People say that women are the greatest enemies of women. I vehemently disagree. It is the patriarchal mindset that makes women believe in the wrong ideology.
The entire world celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. It should be a joyful day, but unfortunately, not all women are entitled to this privilege, as violence against women is at its peak. The experience of oppression pushes many women to choose freedom. As far as patriotism is concerned, feminism is not a cup of tea in this society.
What happens when a woman decides to stand up for herself? Does this world easily accept the decisions of women in this society? What inspires them to be free of the clutches of the oppression that women have faced for ages? Most of the time, women do not get the chance to decide for themselves. Their lives are always at the mercy of someone, which can be their parents, siblings, husband, or children.
In some cases, women do not feel the need to make any decisions. They are taught to obey the patriarchal system, which makes them believe that they are right. In my family, I was never taught to make decisions on my own. It was always my parents who bought dresses and all that I needed.
14 years after her last feature film Dhobi Ghat, storyteller extraordinaire comes up with her new film, Laapataa Ladies, a must watch.
*Some spoilers alert*
Every religion around the world dictates terms to women. The onus is always on women to be ‘modest’ and cover their faces and bodies so men can’t be “tempted”, rather than on men to keep their eyes where they belong and behave like civilized beings. So much so that even rape has been excused on the grounds of women eating chowmein or ‘men will be men’. I think the best Hindi movie retort to this unwanted advice on ‘akeli ladki khuli tijori ki tarah hoti hai’ (an alone woman is like an open jewellery box) came from Geet in Jab We Met – Kya aap gyan dene ke paise lete hain kyonki chillar nahin hain mere paas.
The premise of Laapataa Ladies is beautifully simple – two brides clad in the ghunghat that covers their identity get mixed up on a train. Within this Russian Doll, you get a comedy of errors, a story of getting lost, a commentary on patriarchy’s attitude towards women, a mystery, and a tale of finding oneself, all in one. Done with a mostly light touch that has you laughing and nodding along.
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