It was difficult finding Rushi Naaz's house in the cramped gullies of Jafrabad. But we made it somehow. Each time I went to their place, there would be happy chatter, and they'd show me new clothes. Rushi was going to college and it was a proud moment for the family. It was an act of courage on part of Nafeesa Begum, the mother, to defy conventions and send Rushi to college. With eight members in the family and a meagre income, it was an act that required guts. But Nafeesa is clear in her head. She couldn't go to college and was trapped in a marriage she didn't like. But she had no option.
It was emotional at times like when Nafeesa told me her story. But it was also fun looking at their clothes, and capturing their excitement.
An edited verison of the article appeared in the Indian Express on July 12, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, July 9, 2009
The rattle of the sewing machine on which her mother Nafeesa Begum is stitching clothes for her, is broken only by the quiet, hushed tones in which Rushi Naaz, talks about her hopes, and her nervousness of attending college far from the familiar surroundings.
The 17-year-old, who passed out of an Urdu medium school in Jafrabad and scored 76 percent, has enrolled into Zakir Hussain College under Delhi University where she will study political science. And that’s a big leap for the family.
“I am happy I am going to study but I feel lost. Everything is so different there,” Rushi said. “All is new. I don’t know if I will fit in. But I will give it all I have.”
So dreams are shaping, stretching beyond the mass of narrow streets, lackluster homes huddled together in the narrow gullies of the migrant neighborhood, and past the river, into the city.
Rushi was born in the Walled City, and then moved to the slum colonies in North East Delhi, in a 25 square yard house you reached after crisscrossing the numerous narrow streets off the main road, and in some regards is prey to the penetrating undercurrents of conformity and self-doubt. Thin and frail, she leaned against the lamppost, sweat running down her face, looking dejected after she didn’t make the cut for Ramjas College in the first list. Rooma Naaz, her sister, who also looked uncomfortable in her black synthetic churidar, tugged at her sleeves and told her she needn’t lose heart. With that kind of percentage, you’d get in anywhere, she said to her sister.
“This is just the start. You will be fine,” Rooma said.
For months now, the mother and daughters have been preparing for Rushi’s college. A pair of sandals with fake Chanel logo on them is neatly packed along with dozens of kurtas and salwars in a rusty steel box. It’s as if there’s a wedding and a trousseau is being put together.
But on the first day of college on July 16, Rushi will don a pair of jeans. Perhaps that would be an act of some daring in a locality that doesn’t take kindly to such acts but as her mother who defied traditions by stepping out of the house, and working to provide for the family, Rushi too will follow in the footsteps. A few days ago, she was little reluctant. But it is in defiance that her future lies, Rushi said.
“I used to care. But we have to get out and we have to catch up with the rest of the world,” she said.
***
Coming from an Urdu medium school, Rushi grappled with the typical problems – lack of textbooks, teachers and infrastructure. She had to translate notes from Hindi to Urdu to prepare for her Class 12 examinations. Books weren’t available. But teachers were forthcoming and helped, and Rooma, who studied from Hindi medium, also sat down with her sister helping her with words. She didn’t want to become yet another stereotype, and so she worked hard, Rushi said.
“They say that Urdu medium girls can’t make it. We are looked down upon,” she said. “I want to show we are no less. So what if we had problems.”
After years of poor performance, Urdu medium schools in the state have picked up, scoring an overall pass percentage of 88 percent in the CBSE Class XII board examinations despite all the odds – lack of trained teachers, textbooks and infrastructure. A few years ago, the pass percentage in Class X and XII board examinations fluctuated between 30 to 40 percent. But schools have fared better recently though school officials say it is also because there is no science or commerce stream in Class 12 for the girls.
"If they had maths and science, the results would have been bad. We don't have trained teachers in maths and science. Even in Class X, we have to teach those in English," Shabana Nazir, principal of Jama Masjid No. 2 school said.
The Zeenat Mahal Government Sarvodaya Girls Senior Secondary School is better known in the parts as the “tent-wallah” school because the school bursting at its seams with too many students and ramshackle infrastructure held classes in a tent. The roofs still leak and there aren't enough classrooms to fit in the 3,500 odd students in the school.
Jafrabad, where most settlers are poor migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is a predominantly Muslim area where most girls give up on further studies after high school. According to a school official, who did not wish to be named, only about one percent of the girls attend college.
But Razia Begum, the principal of the school, can see a shift in the mindsets. As a community member, she has tried hard to convince parents that girls’ education should be a priority.
“Most of these girls are first-generation learners. If some parents are sending their girls to college, it is a big achievement. We are a community that has lagged behind. We are poor,” she said. “Here, we mostly have unskilled workers who are not exposed. Situation is changing but it is a slow process and need-based education should be imparted in schools to uplift the community's social and economic conditions."
Another school official said that the government wasn’t doing enough. There are no colleges nearby. Many parents, because of deep-rooted mindsets, are not willing to send their daughters to colleges that are far.
According to the Rajinder Sachar Committee, appointed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that prepared a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India, in the field of literacy, the rate among Muslims is below than the national average. Around 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have either never attended school or have dropped out, which also explains why so few women go on to college.
"They need vocational training and more girls' schools here. There should be more colleges here," the school official said.
Rubeena, a young teacher at the school and a Jafrabad resident, said she wasn't surprised. In 2003, when she passed out of the Zeenat Mahal school, she was among a handful of girls who went on to college.
"It happens. It is the mindset here. They fear if the girl is more educated then it will be difficult to find a match for her," she said. "I could study because my parents let me. But that's not the case with everyone."
***
Nafeesa had sold her earrings to put her first-born in school. Her husband no longer had his motor mechanic job. The garage he worked at closed down. Money was tight, but for Nafisa education was a priority. Married off at a young age, Nafisa’s own ambitions had been sidestepped. She recalled writing short stories in school at an Urdu medium school in old Delhi.
“My heart hurt easily. I was emotional and all that came out in my writing,” she said. “I thought I could become a writer. But a woman’s life is attached to a man’s life. If he is weak, then the woman breaks. I won’t let my daughters break. I will give them my life.”
Bent on the sewing machine, as the morning light flooded the small room, Nafeesa stitched her own dreams on the fabric of her daughter’s future. When she saw the slightly wrinkled hands of her husband on her wedding day 20 years ago, she hadn’t dared to look up. Her husband was 15 years elder to her. But she accepted her fate, working through the night, embroidering clothes, and saving money. When Rooma was born, and then a year later, Rushi followed, Nafisa said she didn’t want them to be crippled like her.
As she wipes the tears off her cheeks, Nafeesa draws her face close to the mirror for a minute, scanning the wrinkles, and the puffy eyes. She might have been summing up her life. She had spent it crouched in a corner, needle in hand, embroidering flowers. Or at the markets, bargaining for cheap deals.
“I still cry in the nights. My life is done. I didn’t look like this. I used to be beautiful once,” she said. “I just became another stereotype.”
In the papers, Nafeesa had read about the Sachar Committee report and wondered if things would improve. She had enrolled her daughters into a English medium school – Oracle Public School – in Jafrabad but she couldn’t afford to teach all four daughters in the elite English medium school. So the girls switched to the Zeenat Mahal School in Jafrabad.
But Nafeesa isn’t the kind to blame her community for the mindsets that got her life dead-ended. True that the Muslims were a community that lagged behind socially and economically. But the fault also lied in her own complicity, she said.
***
In the days leading up to college, while she waited for the results, Rushi enrolled in a private institute to learn English. It didn’t cost much. A mere Rs. 300. She stammered, and struggled through the first few days trying to introduce herself in the language. But cramming words didn’t help much. So, she quit after a month. In the evenings, leaning against the machine, she reads through “A Course in General English” by SJB Mathur in preparation for college.
Barring one or two occasions, where she ventured out of the ghetto in Jafrabad, Rushi has never been in the city. On the day she tagged along with her elder sister, dolled up in a garish, embroidered turquoise kurta, to look at the cut-off results for Delhi University, her face dropped after she saw the girls dressed in designer clothing, carrying branded bags, and walking in their stilettos. And she looked at her cheap sandals her mother got from Gandhinagar, and said she felt out of place.
Then she came back and told her mother the clothes she was making for her - the gaudy, embroidered kurtas – weren’t what they wore at the campus. She wanted more jeans. So Nafeesa went to Gandhinagar again and brought jeans and shirts. Her daughter should look splendid when she enters the college gates because she is a product of her mother’s dreams. She should shine, Nafisa said.
“I have kept our tradition,” Nafeesa said. “I don’t want a bad name, I have told them if they get boyfriends, I will stop their studies. But I know they won’t. They have seen me struggle.”
At Zakir Hussain College, where she made it in the first list, Rushi has chosen English as her medium of instruction. No doubt she will hit the roadblocks ever so often, and words will make her dizzy, but Rushi is determined to make it work.
“I want to become a lawyer. I want to do something for my mother,” she said. “I have problems with the language but I am working hard. Next month when we shift to a different house near the main road, I will join an English coaching institute.”
Rooma, the eldest daughter of the family, is pursuing her Bachelor’s through a distant learning program. The first in her family to study beyond Class 12, Rooma paved the way for her sister.
While the two sisters chat in excited tones about the latest fashion, and tell their mother to introduce an extra frill on the kurta, Annie, the youngest daughter sits next to her mother. In a few years, she too will be the center of attention, and it will be her turn to go to college.
And for Nafeesa, it will yet another victory.
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