Lakshmi

"Where's Lakshmi today? I've been missing her in my class for a while now..." I exclaimed to Anusuya aunty,my co teacher.
"She won't be coming in for a while now. The board exams are on and she's studying for them. Last I heard from a neighbour here that she's shifted out of the village."

The last sentence aunty spoke made me stop in my tracks. I was in a state of disbelief.
"She's shifted out from here?"

My heart broke. I didn't have too much to say then. All my way home I could only picture Lakshmi sitting in my class with a timid and shy look on her face, but her eagerness and enthusiasm to learn always shone brightly. I remember Lakshmi's eyes . She was bright,and had a liveliness that always encouraged me to pull myself up and snap out of any bad moods. Lakshmi was one of my most strongest encouraging factors.

It was last year that i met Lakshmi for the first time. She was a local labourer's daughter and a student of class 12. With her father's meagre wages the family tried hard to get through a month, having only a so called "hand to mouth" existence.

All this sometimes reflected on Lakshmi. She used to wear salwar suits with very long kurtas,most of them really old. She used to look much older than her age. However,she was always a bundle of joy for the class. She was caring and very loving,and gentle to most of the children. I remember standing with her outside after our class once. There was a rabid dog near our feet that was moaning and rubbing itself against Lakshmi's ankles. "It won't do anything to you!" ,she would say to me when I,in my usual paranoia,would prepare myself to nearly climb a lamppost if the need arose. I'm petrified of dogs,and made no exception to rabid ones. " This dog is very loving and it's very affectionate too!" Her eyes glinted even in the dim light of the lamppost. "Do you know this dog that well? I'm scared of most canines. They really scare me a lot...NO! DON'T BRING IT SO CLOSE!" I was panicking. That's when i heard something peculiar from Lakshmi,a couple of years younger to me: "It has a heart too! I feed it everyday. I give it two meals a day. It has such a huge appetite!" Lakshmi was from a deprived background and it amused me to think this girl came out twice a day to feed an ailing dog from the little she is endowed herself. I noticed the expression on her face:it was motherly,with a hint of sadness too.



On a saturday evening,sometime 3 months back,we decided to talk to the kids about their ambitions. Most of the kids,when asked,said they wanted to be doctors or engineers. Kids from deprived backgrounds are taught at home to dream only of two things then,i thought. When Lakshmi was asked, she immediately spoke up,"I want to be a lawyer!".



She always came upto me after class and exclaimed how she wanted to speak in perfect english. She saw her weak communication skills as a barrier to the outside world. "Didi! I want to be able to communicate to the world what I have in me. I want them to know I'm capable!"

I learnt from her she had economics,mathematics and geography as her main subjects. She struggled hard,she told me. Juggling housework while her parents were away,studying and trying hard to fulfil her dreams. I saw her as a source of inspiration. If she can,why can't we all? Her determination and grit were what we all noticed in her. She was the oldest in the group,but her age never came as a hindrance to her learning.

Learning about Lakshmi's leaving my group made me very sad because a source of my inspiration is gone. On this women's day,Lakshmi is one woman I've been thinking about,whose story is like so many others,dreaming to become a somebody,someday...