16-year-old Kamla and her brother Devi Lal take an unusual route to school each day.
Across a river in a make shift raft that’s balanced and somewhat precariously, on two old truck tubes that help it stay afloat. It’s not the safest way to get across the river, but for children like Kamla, there is little choice.
In this small tribal village of Talai, in Udaipur’s Jhadol area where the waters of the Mansi Wakal Dam have submerged large tracts of land, many villages find themselves cut off from the other half of their land as backwaters have submerged fields and paths in the village.
In this case Kamla’s family found the route to school submerged.
But that did not stop Kamla. She was determined to study. “I want to study and become somebody that’s how it is, my parents are very poor, so if I study it will help my family financially,” says Kamla Vadera.
In this tribal village of Rajasthan, most families survive on subsistence level farming and when the food grains run out, they migrate to Udaipur to work as daily wage labourers.
Kamla’s father, barely manages to feed his family of 11 – six children, a wife, his daughter in law and two grand children.
“We are poor,” say Ramji Vadera, “No one has any jobs here. What we grow in our fields, the food grains run out in two maximum three months, then we get subsidized rations from the government. That also does not last very long so we go to nearby towns to work as daily wage laborers,” says Kamla’s father.
Kamla is the second youngest child but she and her younger brother dream of a better life. She hopes that her determination to pass class 10 this year could pave the way for a better future. Her parents too have begun to agree with her that education is the only answer out of this cycle of endless poverty.
“She is determined to study,” says Tankee Bai Kamla’s mother, “They sit on a tube and go across the river she and her brother, even when it rains she does not miss school. It’s good I want her to study, in my life I could not do much, I have wasted my life, I don’t want that to happen to my children.”
Kamla failed to pass her class 10 exams last year, this year she has enrolled in a bigger and better government school with more teaching staff. But it has also meant that she has to work twice as hard. Kamla’s day starts early at 4am in the morning and after crossing the river, the walk to the school is a long one – 4 kilometres on foot one way and another 4 kilometres back.
“When I failed in the 10th I felt very bad, but I still wanted to study, luckily my family supported me. It’s a long walk to school, I get tired, but I hope it will be worth it.” According to Census 2011, 65.46 % women are literate in the country but in Rajasthan only 47.76 % women are literate. Given that the odds are stacked against her, Kamla’s resolve to study is admirable and she and her friends hope that this tough journey to school would pave the way for a better future.
