You cannot make out Shashi Rekha’s steely resolve looking at her delicately built slim frame. The 16-year-old girl from Jyothi Nagar slum colony in Hyderabad is a fighter. She fought to go to school and stay in school. Whatever the odds, she stands up to be counted, as a young woman with dreams and ambitions, and faces the world.
Just a few days ago, her grandfather walked out of their home, seemingly upset, but perhaps also unnerved by the guts of his granddaughter. He had brought an alliance for her. Shashi Rekha’s father had died when she was barely six-months-old of electric shock. He was an electrician. Her mother, Subbamma, who brought up four children on her own after her husband’s death, thought it best to go by the family elder’s advice.
But Shashi Rekha stood her ground and told her grandfather and mother that she had no intention of getting married, at least not until she finished college and got herself a job.
“She threatened to call the police and hand me over, pointing out that she is a minor. Her grandfather, who is not used to any of us saying no to his decisions about the family, was so angry that he walked out of the house, saying he will no longer take responsibility for her,” Subbamma says half smiling. She knows her youngest born won’t be like the elder two girls, both of whom had agreed to be married off at a very young age, because they understood the family situation.
“You cannot make Shashi Rekha do what she does not want to do. I could never make her miss school even for a day, for instance,” Subbamma says.
The pillar of support for Shashi Rekha was her brother Shiva. He stood by his sister and told their grandfather that she was his responsibility. Let her study as much as she wants to. None of us were able to. I will support her.”
Shiva ironically is the least educated among the four siblings. That is because he felt responsible as the man of the household and started working at a very young age to support the family. Now an office boy, his earnings of Rs. 6,000 a month is not sufficient to make ends meet given the high, and constantly rising, day-to-day living expenses.
Shashi Rekha in fact went to work as a live-in domestic help when she was just 8 or 9 years old with no salary on the condition that she would be sent to school and would work before and after school hours.
“I am home now because I am in Class 10th. Working as domestic help and simultaneously coping with academic work, studying for Class 10 exams are not easy,” Shashi says. “The challenges have grown as my brother is the only working member in the family now. Mother used to do housekeeping duty but she does not have a job any more. I want to study irrespective of what it takes.”
But you would wonder if dreams can bloom in asbestos sheds. Home for Shashi Rekha is a 15X15 makeshift tenement that has asbestos sheets for walls and a roof. This is a recently refurbished version that cost Rs. 30,000. Earlier the house would leak from everywhere during the rains. A makeshift washroom in front has only tin sheets and some flexis to give a facade of privacy and safety.
Shashi Rekha’s elder sister Anjali says she supports her younger sister’s dreams but then “reality is different”. Anjali, 22, was married off when she was not yet in Class 9. She is now a mother of two. Renuka, her other sister, was married off after Class 7 two years ago.
“We thought we had no choice, so we gave in. But Shashi Rekha won’t come under pressure. The girl wants to study. It is true, if we marry young, there is more burden, no freedom like at your mother’s home. Life becomes a compromise. We have children, and are only dealing with responsibilities from early morning to night”, Anjali says.
But there are several challenges, one is money and support and there is an issue of physical safety for girls in colonies like these, Anjali points out.
“If my brother and mother are away, how can we leave her alone at home. It is not safe here. There are many things that happen here. There is a ‘kallu compound’ (liquor den) very close to our home. Our house does not even have a secure door.”
Shashi Rekha has seen what happened to her two two sisters and refuses to go down the same path.
“My biggest fear is child marriage. My dream is to get a job and stand on my own feet,” she says. “In my house, they want to marry me off. But come what may, I won’t marry, till I get a job and stand on my feet.”
Where there is a will, they say, there is a way, and Shashi Rekha is determined to find that way.
