Strength to Say No (18 page)

My friends were impatient for me to tell them about this latest trip. They wanted to know everything right down to the smallest detail. Atul suggested rescheduling a class so that my class mates could hear about my experience in New Delhi. I described those meetings with the other young people who were dressed differently and spoke incomprehensible languages, but had identical problems to ours. Of course, I mentioned the meetings with the members of parliament, the prime minister and the president, as well as the encouragements they gave me personally. But I also described all the villagers I had encountered. The reactions were particularly lively when I started describing the glacial weather, the sumptuous monuments and the merry-go-rounds in the amusement park – where I got motion-sick. The welcome from my classmates filled me with energy. I was full of confidence and again ready to tour villages, schools and public places in order to raise the awareness of young people and their parents about the dangers of early marriage.

After school I knock on the headmaster's door. Arjun shows me a chair and gestures for me to sit down. I have one last favour to ask of him. I preach against pre-adolescent marriage, but my speeches are directed at people whose main priority is just to survive economically. For them their children's literacy is optional. The least I ask is that Arjun guarantees me that this won't happen to my own friends and family. My parents made the mistake of not enrolling me in school from the required age, but I hope now that Arjun will provide my younger brothers and sisters with schooling so that they will never have to end up in the conditions that I am denouncing.

Rekha Kalindi was eleven years old when the former Indian president, Pratibha Singh Patil, told her, ‘I am hopeful and sure that you will be an inspiration to other young girls. So that our country can eliminate this notion of marriage between two children at the cost of their education, their future and ultimately their happiness.'

Rekha helps her father (below, watched by his youngest child), who has been rolling traditional Indian cigarettes (bidis) for decades. The low wage is barely enough to feed the whole family.

A young Bengali girl carrying wood

‘Despite legislations and some efforts by government and non-government agencies to educate the people about the dangers of early marriage, prejudices and beliefs underlying the preference continue in India. In West Bengal, too, there is a silent complicity to child marriage; many rural communities treat it as normal and routine.' – Extract from ‘Child Marriage in Rural West Bengal: Status and Challenges', Biswajit Ghosh and Ananda Mohan Kar,

Rekha's mother was at first not supportive of Rekha and beat and starved her daughter when she refused to marry.

Rekha cycling through her home village of Bararola as young men and boys play football

Rekha's father occasionally plays drums in religious festivals and political marches to earn a little more money to support his family.

Rekha and all her family in Bararola village

Rekha's teacher, Atul, has been a key character in her life. He not only supported her when she refused to marry but encouraged her to continue to attend school so that she could have a better education and a better life.

Josna, Rekha's older sister, suffered greatly when she became a mother at just twelve years old. This strongly influenced Rekha's determination to defy her parents' wishes for her to be married off at eleven.