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What are the reasons why a girl's education falls by the wayside?
Your mission in life is chosen.
It's a noble but intimidating task -- to ensure that as many little girls across India get an education.
You knock on the door of a small village home, deep in the scenic interiors of Rajasthan, near Bhilwara. The lady of the house answers. You engage her in a chat, and enquire why her girl is not in school, expectantly hoping, via this first dialogue, she will agree to send her daughter to the nearby pathshala.
She declares flatly, brooking no interference: 'No, no, we are not sending her. I'm not sending my daughter to school.' She won't discuss it further, stubbornly indicating the conversation is over, end of story.
What do you do next?
Return whence you came, dispirited, realising these battles are not easy to wage or win?
Nope! Not if you are Safeena Husain, founder of the NGO, Educate Girls.
Safeena does not surrender easily.
She returned to that Rajasthan home not once more, but four more times.
"I went back the second time. This time she got slightly more irritated with me."
The woman's stance had not changed a bit; she wouldn't budge.
The woman obstinately told Safeena, 'Even if you take my photograph, I'm not sending my daughter to school'.
Never one to be defeated, Safeena went back and on the third occasion, the same mother roundly and angrily told her: 'Even if you make my movie or take my video, I'm not going to send her to school'!
"I remember the fourth time I went, I was just sitting with her, and I was like: 'Come on, let's chat about this, let's talk about this'. There was a baby crawling across the floor (in that home). And she picked up the baby and said, 'Auntie ko ta-ta bolo'! She was trying in whatever way to get me out of the house," she recollects, with a bubbly laugh.
On Safeena's fifth visit she met the not-in-school girl's father in another village home, where he happened to be. She had a local male colleague along and he took the lead in talking to the father. He told him a personal story about his own sister, living in a nearby village -- she got married young, had a few children and her husband tragically passed away early. He explained that because the girl was educated, she could find a job and support her brood without a husband.
The father heard the account carefully and conceded that he would like think about it, requesting: 'Bring me the enrollment papers'. And Safeena learned that in the line of work she had chosen, only with this variety of relentless persistence, and also local help, were her efforts going to pay off -- "I've had so many terrible failures, that I had to learn the hard way."
It's numerous exploratory or recce tours like this into India's hinterland for Educate Girls, operating in 29,000 villages with over 3 million beneficiaries, that keep Safeena Husain always on the move.
She might be travelling to any of these scores of tiny villages, inside remote parts of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar -- specifically in 'hotspot' belts that their database kicks up, where enrollment numbers are not good enough and where "the highest burden of the problem is; where you want to have (maximum) impact, for the most vulnerable, in the shortest amount of time" -- sometimes accompanied by her daughters Kimaya and Rehana and film-maker husband Hansal Mehta, entering communities to find out if their girls are in school, and if not, why not.
Or she's off on work to the various Indian metros.
In May, Safeena was once again on a trip, but to London for a very exceptional reason. She was to receive an honorary doctorate, for building a 'social unicorn', from her alma mater, the London School of Economics, becoming Dr Husain. It was distinguished recognition of her tireless endeavours, over more than 16 years, in educating little Indian village girls.
It took a number of days for Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel and Rajesh Karkera to catch up with Safeena thereafter, between her travels, to understand from her directly, the portent of this honour and the breadth of her work.
We met her in the Educate Girls headquarters in Andheri, north west Mumbai, an office full of plenty of young people and lots of vitality.
Safeena came bustling into the room, wearing pink, brimming with energy too. She's a tall, lively woman, who laughs a lot, and has a ready smile -- someone who you can instantly warm up to. Articulate, eloquent, and quite the raconteur, Safeena narrates the most powerful, moving tales about her journeys into "the deep rural" of Hindustan that touch your heart.
Part 1 of a two-part interview:
Why An NGO Educate Girls?
Safeena's impetus for starting up Educate Girls, in 2007, has roots in her own background.
She too was once an out-of-school girl, teenager rather.
It's almost like the younger version of herself encourages her to carry on zealously with this mission
Hers is "an odd story," says Safeena, because her mum Usha is a Hindu and her father, businessman and actor Yusuf Husain was Muslim and they were both from Uttar Pradesh.
"So, my mother's family is all Tiwari, Tripathi, Trivedi..." and she chuckles musically. So, you can imagine how different they would have been, because from my father's side, they are all Hassan, Husain, Asghari, Jaffrey... It's a whole world of difference!"
In those days, inter-religious shaadis were not warmly welcomed and her parents, who met while studying at Lucknow University, eloped and married and Safeena was born and grew up in New Delhi in a time when there were few children of mixed backgrounds.
An only child, she remembers a somewhat challenging childhood. "I was a very difficult child. You know, (many) personal problems, issues and things. They (her parents) separated. There were a lot of circumstances that were not very pleasant or happy. Incredibly difficult. I kind of dropped out of school after the 12th. There was a whole interruption in my education. For three years I ended up doing nothing. Then everybody starts talking: 'Iski shaadi kara do. What else is there?'"
But Safeena had an aunt of sorts -- "a guardian angel" -- from Lucknow, actually a particularly close family friend of her parents, named Mahe Hassan, who she says was looking out for her. She recounts that the aunt told her family, 'This child has gone through a lot. Give her to me'.
Safeena went to stay with the aunt in London, who she describes as "much more enlightened in many senses" and "a truly incredible human being, really special." Hassan showered much unconditional love and affection on Safeena and helped her put her life back together -- she went from Girl Interrupted to a promising economics student of the London School of Economics. Admission to LSE entirely altered her world and gave her "confidence in myself and my abilities" and she graduated, heading to San Francisco to start her career in non-profits.
Realising how much education had steered her towards a better life, Safeena had the urge to do the same for as many girls who had turned away from education and careers, or for whom that possibility was not even on the table.
Listen to Safeena talk about why she started Educate Girls, how her own story -- "being out of school and feeling kind of worthless" -- led her down this road and the supportive role her father played:
The Girl Who Stays Home
But who keeps the girl of a village family at home? Why? Who does not want her in school, a wrong act that makes her so much more vulnerable, taking away her future and sentencing her to a difficult, defenceless life ahead, when she ends up marrying too soon and birthing children way too early ("the vulnerability is immense. She will be a young bride and a young mother, her own agency forever limited").
Whose fault is it? Is it the father or the mother, or both, who wouldn't look out for the daughter? Or more complicated, is it because the women are worried about upsetting their husbands?
What are the reasons why a girl's education falls by the wayside?
Why was Safeena a casualty too? Maybe because the education system doesn't give youngsters enough options? Or there are societal issues or pressures?
Do please hear Safeena's insightful answer in the video below.
She also speaks in this video about the role of patriarchy and how that -- somewhere silently in the background, from a distant place entrenched in the sub-consciousness -- influences and is the reason why even educated, urban women, from well-to-do families, don't work or have a career and lack aspirations, confidence or support.
"I think the colour of patriarchy stains all of us. It is just: Is it a light shade of pink or a deep shade or red?"
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com