Changing Our World, One Student at a Time

I suppose that i happen to always come to India at the right time. Last time I was here during Dewali and now I am here for 4 different festivals! Sunday, the third, was Friendship Day. On this festival, friends give each other bracelets to celebrate their friendships. I received bands from 6 people! 

Today, Monday, is Teej. It is a festival celebrating women. It is mostly for married women, but most women celebrate it also. We get dressed in our best clothes, wear make up and get Henna (Mehindi) on our hands. Mala and Afsana did mine. I have not taken a picture yet, but I will add one as soon as I do. There is a special pattern of sari that married women wear for Teej. It is a colorful wave pattern (see the below picture) 

It is India’s Independence day on the fifteenth. And then, on the sixteenth, is a festival that celebrates brothers and sisters. Sisters send their brothers bracelets called Rakhis and their brother’s wives Rakhis to hang from their bangles. They also send  cousins Rakhis. We already went shopping for them!

 

The last time that I was here, I was friends with a girl named Nandani who attended Pratham Shiksha. She did my henna on Dewali (See the picture below). I have just found news that she is married and pregnant. Yet, she is only 16. She came by yesterday to give me a friendship band and I have seen her wearing her Teej sari and all of her married attire. I can’t believe she’s younger than me! And already pregnant, too? It is so sad because she can no longer go to school, and she is so young to be pregnant. If she does not have money to sustain a child’s life, why bring one into the world? The thing is, this is not very uncommon in the lower classes. Sumeeti explained to me that these people accept a child as g0d’s gift. They cannot even sustain their own lives, let alone another human being. Yet, the poor continue to have more and more children. Mala was telling me that she has four brothers and sisters. And they all live in the same room. I can’t even imagine! 

This is the largest problem in India now. The overpopulation of the uneducated. They do not understand the problems of having many children, only that there will be more hands to make more money. Yet, this money continues to be spent on the food all the children need to eat. These illiterate parents cannot afford to send their children to school, to clothe them, to provide a decent place for them to live. They vote for the corrupt politicians because they do not know better. And just because they can’t read? I cannot even imagine an adult human being who cannot read. It is hard just to process in my mind. It is so uncommon in the US. I realize now how hard it is not to understand a language which everyone speaks and reads and is on all the signs, etc. I cannot even imagine having the only language that I can speak and understand be all over buildings and on food packages and books and not be able to read it! 

 

This is why Pratham Shiksha is the perfect institution. Instead of just a temporary solution such as donating to a poor person on the street, it gets down to the deep root of the problem. Now these children will learn and be literate, and will hopefully pass this on to their children. While solving their own problems by getting a decent job, they are also helping their country by cleaning up politics and getting involved with a suitable knowledge of what is going on. And, if the country is better, we are one step closer to changing the world. 

 

Thus, I have renamed my journey: Changing our world, one Student at a Time.

 

 

• The first picture is of Nandani, me and Mala. The second is of Laksheta (Poorvi’s best friend), Poorvi and Suhani on Teej. The last is a picture from the Pratham Shiksha’s Teej celebration. The kids are the winners of the henna competition. All of the teachers are wearing Teej Saree’s.

 

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