Against Everything

Collecting arrears since morning, the FSP (financial services provider) and I took a break near Gogunda’s main lake. Three p.m. and the sun was blazing in all its glory yet we didn’t feel the heat. Gogunda is a mighty hill station and it’s also part of a tribal belt that is one of the most back-ward in Rajasthan. There are no established statistics but based on my daily interactions I can bet an arm and a leg – school drop-out rates are more than the estimated 40% in India.

So how did this guy buck the trend? He’s currently doing his BA and simultaneously working in a well known NGO that works in the field of micro-finance for migrant workers. He achieved all of this when out of 80 people in the 6th grade only 20 passed and proceeded to the next class. A year later, he and seven of his closet friends passed the 7th grade too! One would imagine they would have studied further. Out of his entire group, everyone, except him, proceeded towards Gujarat to work in odd jobs and earn a living. This was shocking! I have often heard the now clichéd phrase here, “Pass huey toh Zindabad! Fail huey toh Ahmedabad!” but these guys actually passed so why Ahmedabad then!

He further emphasized, there was no parental pressure on his friends to quit studies but every time they saw someone return from Gujarat, they saw people wearing fancy clothes and flashy shoes. The travel tales that they come with, well, that’s the pull. Also, the dreaded thought of going to college and seeing other students in bright clothes but the embarrassment of seeing themselves in frayed apparel was too overwhelming. He feels there should be an NGO that provides decent clothes, shoes and bags. This will have a definite impact on reducing the drop-out rates.

At this point, a number of things flashed through my mind: Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night where teenagers in Kashmir are dazzled by the green uniform and Kamachi shoes worn my militants and by their svelte Kalashnikov’s strung over their shoulders. This ‘cool image’ acts as a major pull towards the other side. As all of this whirred into my head, I lost track for a couple of minutes, and cursed my ADHD afflicted mind. The reality of migrants in Gujarat is way far from being rosy. His friends who joined as helpers in a hotel, had to get up by 5 a.m. and sleep at midnight, cramped in a room and working in extreme heat, they worked (and still work) in deplorable conditions. He says there are two kinds of grief that a parent goes through: the first one, where the parent can see his children suffering and feels bad about it, the second, he knows his children are in misery, far away, unknown and unseen – this kind of grief absolutely crushes a man.

How did he keep his parents happy and resist Gujarat’s pull? The encouragement of his teacher, his friend and family kept him going. The day when his friends were discussing about pulling out of school, a thought did come to his mind of joining them but his entire support system came to his rescue and egged him on to stay. There are few things in life as difficult as resisting peer pressure, especially the kind that promises freedom from teenage embarrassments. He made it through and this is just the beginning.

(Kamachis were Russian sports shoes that militants had made fashionable in Kashmir)