The School Principal Who Married At Twelve

I met her while travelling through a small town in South India. We were acquainted online. Some women like what I write because it intersects with their life journeys. Sometimes those intersections enrich the writer in return. This story is one such. This is Suvarna’s story (name changed to protect her privacy), written with her permission in support of Breakthrough’s #Selfies4School Campaign to End Early Marriage. This post is dedicated to Suvarna’s 12-year-old self, the Supergirl Uma of our lives.

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She had gone to attend his marriage and found him distraught.  The bride was not of his choice and he was being forced to marry her. He was suicidal. 11-year-old Suvarna stepped in and promised herself to him if he, in turn, did not take his own life.

When children make a promise, they often mean it. By end of the year, she moved in with him, a man 14 years older than her. If you are bewildered as I am, you will ask—where were the parents? Suvarna’s mom was very sick at that time and unaware of events unfolding in her daughter’s life. Suvarna’s dad had no will, no foresight. He abandoned her quickly. The couple were married in a temple. The typhoon settled into the 12-year-old’s life.

She seethes now, “I should have been stopped. I was neither physically nor mentally prepared for marital life. I didn’t know what I wanted. That was not the time for marriage.”

Confused and blown by the nightmarish winds of marital nights, Suvarna discovered she was pregnant. She was sent to a family friend’s house where she gave birth to a son at the age of 15. She found herself deeply attached and protective of this child. Sometimes she would play with him and forget housework. She would be beaten up for that in the evening when the husband returned home.

She became pregnant, again in a couple of years. This time her parents accepted her back. She went home to deliver her second child, her daughter. Age 18. That’s when the reality struck and the world came crashing down. Her schoolmates had completed 10th and 12th board exams and were looking forward to joining college. And here she was with her second child. Life had turned, gushed and left her behind. Uma simmered.

So she made a promise—my daughter will study, my daughter will marry at the appropriate age. Uma will live through her daughter.



[psst... for those who are wondering who Uma is—she is the mascot for the Breakthrough campaign. She represents freedom in a girl-child’s life. Read more about the campaign here]

She helped with her children’s homework with whatever knowledge she had. She began to read voraciously. And then life turned again and returned her. Her husband’s job was in doldrums. Her children’s education was at stake and she couldn’t bear to compromise on that. In desperation, she started looking for a job and realized she needed a degree certificate. Her daughter, interested in her mother’s education, helped her find a program. She was now in her mid-thirties.

Annamalai University’s Open University offering, at that time, allowed candidates who pass their eligibility test to join the post-graduate stream. She passed and joined MA (English). Two decades after she had dropped out of school, she again sat for formal exams. She didn’t know how to write answers at the college level, about what is expected and how to go about it. She struggled but passed with decent marks.

She joined a school to teach. Her teaching and organization skills were noticed and a local college recruited her as a college lecturer. She loved teaching and her students loved her. Soon she wound her way to become the head of department of English. If you are as amazed as I am, you would say, “Suvarna, what an incredible life journey!”

She, however, dismisses the acknowledgement. “I got lucky. Small town, lack of teachers, I was noticed. It is not easy to return. Once you have settled into marital life—household work and children, stagnation sets in. You give up. I know women in villages who were married off early but with 10th pass education and they say they can’t make sense of their children’s school studies. They have given up because stagnation has set in. There is a time to study. One must study during that time. Marriage in its own time, sometime in your mid-twenties.”

Recently, she was recruited by an International School to head it. She realized she needed a B.Ed degree. She has joined Karnataka Open University system for the degree. She is 46. Mother of two children, both well-educated, both working with reputed companies, both married in their twenties.

She shakes her head when I point out her successes in spite of the early marriage. “Early marriage is a big big compromise on life. A stranglehold you cannot escape. A nightmare that does not end.” I listen to the sadness in her voice.

A staff member in her school remarked one day: “Ma’am, when you sit with children, you become one of them.” Her twelve-year-old self never left her. The shadow of those years sits heavy. Uma still beckons. To that child, to Uma, Suvarna has written this poem:

She lives still,

She is there,

Here:

Behind life's mist

Awaiting sunshine

In company

A spectre

With a smile that veils

A betrayal.

She lives still,

With me.

 

I learn

What she does not teach.

I listen

To what she does not preach.

She lives still,

Dear and loved,

With me.

This poem is for parents of all young girls. Let them live. Let them study. Let them smile. Long Live the Uma of our lives!



 

 

 

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