Chirping birds on the huge banyan tree stirred Jyoti from her sound sleep. She pulled aside the thin blanket from her face, and looked out of verandah, still lying on her charpoy. The sky turned a from a deep black to bright red, then orange to a golden yellow and finally came a clear blue sky, and the sun shone like fierce red ball.

Dawn was here.

Jyoti smiled and woke up. She went about her routine in a hurry. She had something important to do. She had to go to school.

15 year old Jyoti had big dreams. She wanted to study and teach other kids in her village. Of course, she also wanted to earn, to help her aging father.

Her innocent black eyes, and her hair tied in two plaits defied her thoughts.

“Amma, I am going to the fields to play” She shouted and ran. She could not tell her mother about the school. Girls in her village were not allowed to study. She could hear her mother mumble to herself. She knew it would be the same thing – A girl should know how to cook, how to behave, how to take care of her husband. She knew that her mother could never understand the need for studies.

Jyoti’s mother was married at the age of 9, to a man 10 years older to her. She had never seen a world beyond the village. Her elder sisters, Kamla and Saritha, were married in a single ceremony to brothers in an affluent family at the age of 14 and 16.Her father had given a huge amount of money in dowry for them.

She never wanted to marry. She hated the dowry system. She hated her sisters’ husbands who shamelessly asked for more money.

Her mother was looking for prospective grooms to wed Jyoti. Destiny seemed to be in her stride –things never went past the initial talks.

She was waiting for India to be declared independent, and hoping for a change.

She reached the open-air school before anyone else did. She hid behind the wide trunk of a tree, and held a stick in hand and cleared a patch of mud in front of her.

As the missionary British lady taught young boys the alphabet, she practiced it on the mud, using the stick in hand, reciting to herself. By mid afternoon, when the students dispersed, she cleared off the mud, and started her journey back home. She was happy with what she had learnt.