The Resolve

              The Resolve 

 

      “Amma, I too want to go to school like daju . ” It was an innocent statement by Sona as she sat cross legged, teary eyed chopping onions for their humble meal of finger millet chapati, onions and salt. 

  

   Malti looked at her agast while cooking the chapati on her iron skillet, ” Who is corrupting your mind Chori, don’t you know the rule of this village, no girl ever attends school. All we do is cook, clean and look after our house. ” 

   

 Sona lived with her mother and elder brother Shyam in a tiny isolated hamlet amidst the snow capped mountains, verdant valley and meandering streams to the part of the Himalayas called Kumaon. 

 

    “Amma daju says I can go his school beyond the river, ” the next day she brought the same appeal again. 

   ” Who will fill the water from the stream and clean the utensils while I tend the field chori. ” 

   “Amma, I will help her, together we will finish the chores on time and attend school after that,” Shyam chipped in always by his sisters side. 

 

   ” The daughter of a lowly widow, you wish to go to school, I don’t know how this absurd idea even crossed your minds, ”  Malti left them without giving much thought to their proposal. 

 

     A couple of days later Malti found Sona folding two chapatis and keeping them inside a rag cloth bag. 

“I am going to school with daju Amma, please don’t stop me, I have filled four pots of water, cleaned the utensils and washed the clothes,” Sona spoke with resolve in her voice. 

    The government school Shyam was attending provided free education to girls Shyam told her, they even provided nutritious mid day meals to the children and books could be arranged from senior kids. There was no problem , Sona was attending school was his final decision. 

 

     That day there was spring in her steps as Sona gently treaded the hilly paths, shallow streams and narrow pathways leading to the middle school Shyam attended. She was welcomed with open arms by the teacher Ganga ma’am and her other classmates. 

      A chirpy and witty girl she made friends quickly and even grasped the subjects being taught in school by listening to her teacher with rapt attention. 

    

   But the news of Sona attending school spread in the village like wild fire, ” How dare Shyam take his sister to school, didn’t he know the rule of the village”. 

   The next day they were summoned before the Panchayat. However, Shyam did not waver from his stand even for a minute. While Malti kept on wiping her tears from the corner of her saree, Shyam spoke with  resolve in his voice,  sending his sister to school was his decision and he wouldn’t change it. It was almost fifty years their country had become independent and they were still depriving the girls of the basic right of education. 

     With folded hands, head bent low he left the gram Panchayat ready to face any consequences of sending his sister to school. For months nobody spoke to them, their potatoes were not bartered with maize and they were boycotted from all social gatherings.

 

     Shyam silently helped his sister in her chores, was fine with loosing his friends from the village and sometimes they even had to do with the one meal they consumed in the school but his determination of sending his sister to school was intact. 

    Sona too endured all the insults hurled at her but studied with will and determination to prove her brother right. 

 

   ” Ma’am, your tea!!” , Sona’s reverie was broken , as she relaxed herself on her revolving chair and placed her glasses on the large mahogany table in front of her. DM Sona Rawat was sitting in her cabin as the first female District Magistrate of the Pithoragarh district of Uttrakhand. Her journey from a village which didn’t allow girls education to securing a good rank in UPSC and becoming a DM in her home state was never easy but she didn’t have the option of giving up as behind all her hard work and efforts was the love and support of her daju Shyam, who himself was a civil engineer in the Uttarakhand government now. Sona still had a long way to go, all the remote villages in her state would definitely see the light of education one day, she resolved. 

 

Glossary 

Daju – elder brother in Kumaoni language 

Chori – young girl