Celebrate! What?

By Anjum, a beneficiary of the Blossom Bus
(transcribed/translated by Suraj Kumar, LEARN Program Officer)



Anjum (left) with her classmate Farana

My name is Anjum and I am 16 years old. I am the first girl along with my classmate Farana (who also goes to school with me on the Blossom Bus) in the history of my village Babupur in Mewat, Haryana to reach grade 10 in a school. I am told that this is an achievement. How? My parents are not much happy about this achievement as they are happier with the money they are expecting from the harvest being done. Nobody in the village congratulated me. I do not know how to celebrate and with whom. The girls of my age are busy harvesting and helping their mothers. Not many girls from my village go to school and none go to a school after grade five as we do not have an upper primary school in the village. I know most of the girls my age are married and most of them have kids at 16 in Mewat. And nobody is complaining because every parent is trying to get rid of their daughters by marrying them off as early as possible as we are considered vulnerable.

A question comes to my mind when I do not find any other girls from my village to celebrate with. Who is responsible for this situation where no girl has studied till grade 8 or 10 in my village? Parents? Teachers? School authorities or the girls themselves are blamed by some parents. I think everyone. The parents never took any initiative to send the girls to school beyond grade five, away from the village because it is not safe. But is it not unsafe at home or when working in the fields alone and unprotected? Is it not true that girls, if educated, are better prepared to protect themselves? The parents are escaping from their responsibility by putting the blame on the society in Mewat. It requires courage to stand apart from the masses and do something which seems to be difficult, but is better.

The lethargic and insensitive teachers taking advantage of the attitude of the parents also discourage girls from coming to school, as more students means more work for some teachers who only want to come to school to mark attendance to justify their salaries and no parents are complaining. We have some very good teachers but the bad teachers are spoiling the atmosphere in the schools and discouraging girls. We have lethargic higher authorities as I have never seen a Block Education Officer or District Education Officer coming to our school and patting our backs for coming to a school four kilometers away from our homes.

We are never taught anything apart from our books. Never encouraged to play games and never given the liberty to do something other than reading a book and do something we like the most. That is, talking to my friends and sharing my thoughts, like my desire to fly on an airplane so I can see my home from the sky.

Anjum and Farana studying at Anjum's house

Then one day I found a reason to celebrate. Celebrate with my 45 school mates who are eagerly waiting for the Blossom Bus every morning, travelling with me on the Blossom Bus to school and they are also like me very happy to achieve something which never happened in our village. This was the day when we all were given a report card showing that we are all promoted to next classes.

We all had the opportunity to celebrate with the person who took initiative and stood apart [Project Director Suraj Kumar]. Mr. Kumar motivated our parents to send us to school by providing us protection in Blossom Bus; he motivated our teachers to give some thought to sports and recreation; he motivated the village elders, who decide the rules for the society, by inviting them to the school to distribute sweaters to all the girls in the school in acute winters. I could see some shyness in the eyes of the elders when they were distributing sweaters. Maybe they were thinking that this is the right thing, maybe a difficult but better option.

My mother says good things are always difficult to achieve. I know that Suraj, who took all the courage to challenge this lethargic and insensitive system, was threatened by more than 20 teachers who look more like goons than the GURU in the very school where he is doing a very good work by showing a right path for the education of girls of Mewat. I also know that he never gave up under the threat and rather made the teachers who threatened him in a closed room apologize to him before the whole school, all students and elders of the village in a function to distribute sweaters. This has strengthened my belief that ‘Truth Prevails’.

We all 46 girls pray to GOD for Lotus Outreach and its officers and salute the Blossom Bus. God Bless Blossom Bus!