Meet Anjali

 I met Anjali in computer class when she was struggling to write a job application in English and since then I have gotten to know her a wee bit more. Aged 15 she had 5 siblings and her father has a small shop that sells flour, sugar and rice. She say “he is a good, simple man who care for mother and children; we middle cast but very poor.” She says she feels lucky to be able to go to college in Gaya as her father and mother never went to school but they push their children to get an education. She is studying economics and would like to work on the computer in a bank one day. I wondered why she came to the computer classes here at the vocational centre when she was already in college, but she told me that there are no computers in college?! and that the vocational center was her only chance to get computer tuition for free. This just goes to show how the ‘colleges’ in many parts of India are in name only, in fact I have hear that many teacher rarely show up and that it is possible to pay for your degree and hardly attend classes, if you know the right people. Guess that expensive American education has some weight to it after all. Anyway, Anjali has landed a job in the EDLT’s office so we work together. She travels from Gaya on the bus 4 days a week, leaving home around 7am and works from 9am until 3pm; she has to be back home before dark at 6pm. The days she is not in the office she is in college. We work on the data entry of all the classes test results of the 5 schools and swap English and Hindi lesson throughout the day. She has taught me some tricks on excel and I have shown her ways to organize her office and do data entry quick and easy with no mistakes. On talking about marriage Anjali say she does not want to get married but rather wants to be a successful business lady. On asking why she does not want to be married, when all the other girls talk about marriage, most of the time, she quickly says “marriage no good for girl!” Probing deeper she reveals that she has seen many women being “tortured” by their husbands. Rather a strong word to use but she continues that, husbands try to control their wives, shout and beat them and that husbands also have girlfriends drink and smoke. She continues that she sees women “suffer” at the hands of their husbands and she wants “not marriage, I happy myself and help family.” Anjali is a bright young women, always smiling and eager to learn, I hope she can continue to work in the office and practice her growing computer skills some more. Maybe she will escape bad marriage and live her dream, it certainly helps that her parents want a better life for her than they did. This story is not so different from the story of my grandparent and parents generation and it reminds me to be grateful to my family for all their encouragement over the years.