How education helped me rewrite my life Ashweetha Shetty
I was eight years old.
I remember that day clearly
like it happened just yesterday.
My mother is a bidi roller.
She hand-rolls country cigarettes
to sustain our family.
She is a hard worker
and spent 10 to 12 hours
every day rolling bidis.
That particular day she came home
and showed me her bidi-rolling wage book.
She asked me how much money
she has earned that week.
I went through that book,
and what caught my eyes
were her thumbprints on each page.
My mother has never been to school.
She uses her thumbprints
instead of a signature
to keep a record of her earnings.
On that day, for some reason,
I wanted to teach her
how to hold a pen and write her name.
She was reluctant at first.
She smiled innocently and said no.
But deep down, I was sure
she wanted to give it a try.
With a little bit of perseverance
and a lot of effort,
we managed to write her name.
Her hands were trembling,
and her face was beaming with pride.
As I watched her do this,
for the first time in my life,
I had a priceless feeling:
that I could be of some use to this world.
That feeling was very special,
because I am not meant to be useful.
In rural India, girls are generally
considered worthless.
They’re a liability or a burden.
If they are considered useful,
it is only to cook dishes,
keep the house clean
or raise children.
As a second daughter
of my conservative Indian family,
I was fairly clear from a very early age
that no one expected anything from me.
I was conditioned to believe that
the three identities that defined me –
poor village girl –
meant that I was to live a life
of no voice and no choice.
These three identities forced me to think
that I should never have been born.
Yet, I was.
All throughout my childhood,
as I rolled bidis alongside my mother,
I would wonder:
What did my future hold?
I often asked my mother,
with a lot of anxiety,
“Amma, will my life
be different from yours?
Will I have a chance to choose my life?
Will I go to college?”
And she would reply back,
“Try to finish high school first.”
I am sure my mother
did not mean to discourage me.
She only wanted me to understand
that my dreams might be too big
for a girl in my village.
When I was 13, I found
the autobiography of Helen Keller.
Helen became my inspiration.
I admired her indomitable spirit.
I wanted to have
a college degree like her,
so I fought with my father
and my relatives to be sent to college,
and it worked.
During my final year
of my undergraduate degree,
I desperately wanted to escape
from being forced into marriage,
so I applied to
a fellowship program in Delhi,
which is about 1,600 miles
away from my village.
(Laughter)
In fact, I recall that the only way
I could fill out the application
was during my commute to college.
I did not have access to computers,
so I had to borrow
a college junior’s cell phone.
As a woman, I could not
be seen with a cell phone,
so I used to huddle
his phone under my shawl
and type as slowly as possible
to ensure that I would not be heard.
After many rounds of interviews,
I got into the fellowship program
with a full scholarship.
My father was confused,
my mother was worried –
(Applause)
My father was confused,
my mother was worried,
but I felt butterflies in my stomach
because I was going
to step out of my village
for the first time
to study in the national capital.
Of the 97 fellows selected that year,
I was the only rural college graduate.
There was no one there
who looked like me or spoke like me.
I felt alienated, intimidated
and judged by many.
One fellow called me “Coconut Girl.”
Can you guess why?
Anyone?
That’s because I applied
a lot of coconut oil to my hair.
(Laughter)
Another asked me where
I had learned to speak English,
and some of my peers did not prefer
to have me on their assignment teams
because they thought I would not be able
to contribute to their discussion.
I felt that many of my peers
believed that a person from rural India
could not supply anything of value,
yet the majority of Indian
population today is rural.
I realized that stories like mine
were considered to be an exception
and never the expectation.
I believe that all of us are born
into a reality that we blindly accept
until something awakens us
and a new world opens up.
When I saw my mother’s first signature
on her bidi-rolling wage book,
when I felt the hot
Delhi air against my face
after a 50-hour train journey,
when I finally felt free
and let myself be,
I saw a glimpse
of that new world I longed for,
a world where a girl like me
is no longer a liability or a burden
but a person of use, a person of value
and a person of worthiness.
By the time my fellowship ended,
my life had changed.
Not only had I traced my lost voice,
but also had a choice
to make myself useful.
I was 22.
I came back to my village
to set up the Bodhi Tree Foundation,
an institution that supports rural youth
by providing them with education,
life skills and opportunities.
We work closely with our rural youth
to change their life
and to benefit our communities.
How do I know my institution is working?
Well, six months ago, we had a new joinee.
Her name is Kaviarasi.
I first spotted her
in a local college in Tirunelveli
during one of my training sessions.
As you can see, she has a smile
which you can never forget.
We guided her to get an opportunity
to study at Ashoka University, Delhi.
The best part of her story is that
she is now back at Bodhi Tree as a trainer
working with dedication to make a change
in the lives of others like her.
Kaviarasi doesn’t want
to feel like an exception.
She wants to be of use
to others in this world.
Recently, Kaviarasi mentored Anitha,
who also comes
from a remote, rural village,
lives in a 10-foot-by-10-foot home,
her parents are also farm laborers.
Kaviarasi helped Anitha secure admission
in a prestigious undergraduate program
in a top university in India
with a full scholarship.
When Anitha’s parents
were reluctant to send her that far,
we asked the district
administration officials
to speak to Anitha’s parents,
and it worked.
And then there is Padma.
Padma and I went to college together.
She’s the first in her entire village
to attend graduation.
She had been working with me at Bodhi Tree
until one day she decides
to go to graduate school.
I asked her why.
She told me that she wanted to make sure
that she would never be
a liability or a burden to anyone
at any point in her life.
Padma, Anitha and Kaviarasi
grew up in the most tough
families and communities
one could only imagine.
Yet the journey of finding
my usefulness in this world
served them in finding
their usefulness to this world.
Of course there are challenges.
I’m aware change
does not happen overnight.
A lot of my work involves working
with families and communities
to help them understand
why getting an education
is useful for everyone.
The quickest way
to convince them is by doing.
When they see their kids
getting a real education,
getting a real job, they begin to change.
The best example
is what happened at my home.
I was recently given an award
in recognition of my social work
by the chief minister of my state.
That meant I was going
to be on television.
(Laughter)
Everyone was hooked on to the television
that morning, including my parents.
I would like to believe
that seeing her daughter on television
made my mother feel useful too.
Hopefully, she will stop
pressuring me to get married now.
(Laughter)
Finding my use has helped me
to break free from the identities
society thrusts on me –
poor village girl.
Finding my use has helped me
to break free from being boxed,
caged and bottled.
Finding my use has helped me
to find my voice,
my self-worth and my freedom.
I leave you with this thought:
Where do you feel useful to this world?
Because the answer to that question
is where you will find
your voice and your freedom.
Thank you.
(Applause)