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Underserved Women

Reading this story about the gender gap in smart phone ownership in rural India took me back to the 80s when I was growing up in semi-rural India. Our domestic help, R had three daughters and a son. The oldest, V took care of her younger siblings, worked as a domestic help herself in a few homes and was the one responsible for preparing meals in their own household. Despite this endless litany of responsibilities at a tender age of thirteen, she enrolled herself into an evening school to gain basic literacy. Within months she was reading and writing. After the days work was done and the younger siblings went to bed, V would complete her homework. When I saw her last she had completed eight grade and had well exceeded her dream of basic literacy. 

Her brother, the youngest of the siblings, went to regular school for which the entire family worked and paid for. He had neither the burning desire for education like V nor any natural aptitude or talent for learning. V had accomplished orders of magnitude more than him without any support whatsoever. I tried to help V every chance I got to push a bit further - I rooted for her success because she represented the hidden powerhouse of talent women like her can often be. I wanted to be the one who saw that and shone what little light I could on it. The net loss to India from denying access and opportunities to legions of girls like V and Pinky is unfathomable and yet in all these decades not much seems to have changed. 

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