When Varsha was 6, her father found a school for her. It was free, run by a local charity. It borrowed space from a private school, and so it was blessed with the things that the local government-run schools lacked: tables and chairs, colorful posters, and teachers who showed up to teach. Classes were conducted in English, which gave its students the ability to communicate in the language of the modern, global economy.
Shubha, one of the first homeowners on the block, watched Varsha grow up. This was an unusually driven child, Shubha quickly realized. Varsha would come to deliver stacks of clothes and stay behind to read Shubha’s books. Next, she was demanding Shubha’s help with homework. Soon, she was using the family’s computer. Shubha marveled at her gumption.
“My own children,” she said, “don’t have the aspiration that she has.”
Varsha inhaled everything school had to offer: math, volleyball, music—everything. And as she grew older, she juggled school with all her chores at home: making fresh bread every night for her family of seven, hanging laundry to dry, helping her brothers and sisters with their homework. Still, she was single-mindedly focused on doing well in her own studies. School was her refuge. It was also her exit ticket out of the ironing stand.
Varsha’s father was pleased to see what a devoted student she was. The last thing he wanted for her was to follow in his footsteps. “I have been pressing clothes all my life,” he said once. “The main thing I want for my children is that they do something better.”
But the more educated she became, the more assertive she became. She wanted to learn how to dance. He said no. She wanted to go on field trips. He said no.
“She is growing wings,” he once complained to the school principal, by which he meant that she was becoming too independent. “She’s talking back.”