Author: Shree Venkatram
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 17, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=24015
Ladnun is a small town one of the
most backward districts of Rajasthan. A serpentine road from Ratangarh
railway station through parched land takes you there. If you are lucky
you would have passed a truck or two, for on this road you travel for miles
without seeing a human or an animal. The drought for the fifth year running
has left the ground cracked.
Ladnun has quaint Jain havelis,
but their occupants have left to make crores in big cities. Some of them
maintain caretakers, who keep the haveli clean for the sheth's annual visit.
At the end of one Jain street is the Jain Vishwa Bharti Institute (JVBI),
a little university. On its campus rainwater is harvested, bougainvillaea
bloom and peacocks strut about.
Sixty bright-eyed girls are doing
their first year BA in Political Science. It is the first undergraduate
course thrown open for girls. Most of them are first-generation women to
receive higher education. Were it not for the bus that the institute runs,
which brings them to their college on the JVBI campus and takes them back,
many of them would have been unable to attend. The new vice-chancellor
of the university knows that and when she threw open the institute's gates,
acquiring a bus was a priority.
The girls revel in the joy higher
education brings. When asked what was the first word that came to their
mind when they were given the term ''college", unhesitatingly one of them
replied: ''mauj-masti''. It is like being let out of a prison. And as the
girls make friends, explore the university, attend classes, discover the
library, try out the latest fashions, the parents look around for grooms.
But will these girls marry the first suitable boy?
Unlikely. All of them want to work,
to be economically independent. And most of them know what they want to
do - law, journalism, teaching, business management and even flying! They
are finding out how to get there.
How would a traditional society
react to these girls? Would it force them to conform - put them behind
the ghunghat or the burkha - or would the force of their collective spirit
crumble the small-town middle class bastions and set them free? The tide
is strong, and there is no holding back. They want to have control over
their lives. Who would know this better than the boys on the campus? Among
them is a palpable apprehension of the changing equations. She is different
from the women they have known so far. Would they be able to handle this
creature who wants to be an equal, have a career and an opinion? Would
she respect her in-laws and be god-fearing, cook and wait for them like
they have seen the women do? Would they have to share the household chores?
And would entering the kitchen be a reflection on manhood? ''Manhood''
here is waiting for a new definition.
In nearby Koel village, people have
turned out in full strength and in their best - from the old bent man to
the baby wide-eyed on her mother's shoulder. The village has no health
centre and only a primary school. Its fragile economy couldn't be worse.
But they are celebrating the opening of a bridge school for those girls
who have passed out of primary school but could not continue their education
because there was nowhere to go.
The villagers have contributed in
cash and the labour to build the five-room school. The university helped
in devising a curriculum, identifying the teachers and a women's organisation
in a neighbouring town donated a handsome amount that will go towards paying
the teachers and buying basic equipment. Thirty enthusiastic girls cannot
wait to begin.
The coordinator of this unique project
has been covering the distance from Udaipur to check out her new assignment
before she moves into the campus. She crosses the desert by bus, train,
anything that moves. She is excited - and in the few meetings she has had
with her to-be students she has already taught them a song and helped them
prepare a skit for the inauguration.
In Sujangarh, a neighbouring town,
waits a real surprise. Savita Rathi, a lawyer by training, a mother and
a medical superintendent by choice. She switches among her roles with absolute
ease and carries herself with supreme confidence. "Yes, it has been tough,"
she admits. "Women have to struggle very hard to succeed especially in
small towns like these."
But that is the last thing that
bothers these women. They want more from life and are prepared to travel,
live alone, study and slog for it. They yearn for a life beyond home.
