Below are the personal statements of the 16 graduates of Shanti Bhavan’s Class of 2011. Click on each to expand and read. You can also meet the Shanti Bhavan Class of 2011.

If you or a loved one would like to support one of our graduates, please learn how you can donate to our college fund.

 

It was a memorable evening. As I stretched my hand towards the green slender snake, a creature that is feared by almost everyone and is believed to attack the eyes of its victims, I could hear my heart beat in my ears. I was near the bush where my friends had found the snake. Tension rose among the young viewers of Shanti Bhavan who were of fourth and fifth grades. I did not know if the snake would bite me, but somehow my hand steadily moved towards it. When I finally had the lovely creature in my hand, I became internally peaceful, although my friends continued to scream with fright. The snake felt smooth and timid. It was graceful and seemed shy. It had pretty yellow eyes and yellow tongue with a point snout. <Click to read more>

I have never been one who has followed conventional paths. I was born into the “lowest caste” of society in a rural village called Mariapura, located outside of Bangalore. Traditionally, girls from my village do not attend school. Instead, they typically marry by the age of 14 and have children by the age of 15. The choice my mother made for my future led me to a different path. <Click to read more>

I was born chained by my “master.” My master was invisible, but invincible. My master was dormant, but also the most destructive of my young life. My master had no human form, but was totally in control of all members of my family. Everyone – children, women, and men in my community – lived each day in anguish and suffering in the face of our master. I do not remember a day when my mother did not cry; she wept not just for herself, but for her nine children for whom she saw no hope. We were living out a nightmare in which darkness mirrored our despairs and hunger. <Click to read more>

Untouchably rough hands and calloused palms with skin as thick as soles are what everyone in my family shares. Weathered first in the hot sun and then hardened by physical work on rough roads and dry fields, our heels are cracked and caked with mud. Sweat, dust and grime cover the three of us from head to toe. For my parents, this is an everyday routine. To me, this is the first day at work, at the age of nearly five. My palms, unlike my parents, are tender and burn with blisters that have burst from just a few days of rough physical labor. Thorns and stones pierce the soles of my feet that never had felt the comfort of footwear, as we trudge hurriedly homeward. <Click to read more>

Should a four-year-old child hide from a mentally ill close relative whose main goal is to cause harm? Should she have to break into her own house to retrieve the few things that she owns in the world? Should she have to constantly look out on the street in fear of someone? These were never choices for me but then, it was only so in my past.<Click to read more>

At the age of four it seemed like I was destined to lead the same despondent life of both my parents. I had always wanted to make things good for my family, but that didn’t seem possible. In spite of my determination to bring about change, I was constrained by poverty and artificial societal norms. In the history of my family, dreams remained dreams, while I clung on to the last rays of optimism. <Click to read more>

My mom was widowed at twenty. As she went from place to place searching for somewhere to live, I tagged along beside her. It was difficult to find a safe shelter to stay in since we were part of the “lower society.” After a long search, an ashram that offered shelter to homeless people decided to take us in. Despite the peace and safety it provided us, we were in turmoil. My mother agreed to run small errands on behalf of others to make money, as well as do odd jobs to earn a living. Life was not easy and there was little dignity. We would both pray for a miracle each day. My mother had said that if you wanted something – really wanted something – the whole universe would conspire to make sure you received it. So I would close my eyes and pray for a better life. <Click to read more>

I heard a loud shriek, and ran out to see my father bringing his hand down in big swings at my mother. She was screaming even louder as she covered my sister. My father was drunk and persisted in beating my mother. There seemed no stopping his anger. I stood watching as each blow filled me with more anger toward my father. What had my mother done? Why was my father beating her? Why did he drink so much? <Click to read more>

“You are wasting your time,” a prosperous looking man scorned at a business entrepreneur who had just arrived in Bangalore from America in 1995. “And wasting your money,” an even older looking man added. His eyes shone like two pennies. The others who had come as a group to see the businessman at the hotel nodded their heads in approval. He looked at them in apparent amazement. <Click to read more>

It’s four in the morning when I head towards the vegetable and cow feed farm on a small parcel of land owned by our family. My hands are numb from the cold morning air. I clench my fingers around a large spade and walk towards the water tank. I open the outlet for water and rush back to the farm to irrigate the plants. By 8 AM I am back home for breakfast. Soon after, I take the cows for grazing. The air feels damp and I am scorched and thirsty from the intense heat of the summer sun. I finish grazing cows and head back homeward by noon. <Click to read more>

I remember a time when I would sit in my neighbor’s house drinking milk that had a cloying smell. My cousin would come running in, yelping with pain and cursing in Tamil between her husky wails. “Let him go to hell,” she would shout. My neighbors would automatically lock her in one of their musty storage rooms, and we would resume our activities as if she had never come.<Click to read more>

The scene is so clear in my mind that I can almost see it before my eyes. My mother is crouching on the cold floor; my father is hovering over her. His hands are on the chain around her neck that had tied around her neck long ago, the day he took her as his wife. My mother is crying. “Please leave me. This is the last thing that I have left,” she begs, but he doesn’t listen. My younger sister and I watch from the doorway as our father gives a forceful yank and then beads in the chain go flying all around the sorrowful figure of my mother. Like a hungry animal searching for food, she falls upon the floor and starts gathering the scattered black beads which are lying all around her. Tears are falling down her cheeks, as we rush to her side, crying, “Ma.” Seeing her collecting the lost beads, we join in, our small palms gathering as much as they could hold.<Click to read more>

As the early morning light would wake her up, she knew it was the beginning of another day of struggle for survival. She would feed her children whatever little she had, and then leave them with her husband to go to work in the factory. She would return from work each evening more exhausted than the last, nauseated from breathing the powder that was left everywhere from the tablets produced at the factory. With the little money she earned, she supported her family. Her husband squandered his earnings, if any when he chose to work, on alcohol. As night would fall, she would take her children and her husband searching for a place on the roadside to shield themselves from rain and wind. This mother to three children cried hopelessly in the darkness, singing a dirge each night that no other living would care to hear. <Click to read more>

I don’t remember much about my early childhood until it was completely changed. All that remain in my mind about those forgotten years are unfocused memories of my mother braiding my overgrown hair, walking to my small village school through dense sugarcane fields, climbing trees, escaping from classes to roam the village aimlessly amid a pack of boys, and continuously scraping my chin after climbing lofty tamarind trees. <Click to read more>

Tears trickled out of my distraught eyes, frightened and saddened as I was. The wind blew ash all around choking my breath, as our shack went up in flame. My sobs reflected my family’s despair as the treacherous fire destroyed our home, all belongings, clothing and cattle. Wrought with fear of what would happen to our lives, I leaned on my mother’s gaunt shoulders and intertwined my fingers with my father’s. Trapped now in deep destitution, we stood helplessly and watched the fire die along with our hopes Though an accident, this fire remained an unforgiving incident for years to come, as my family struggled to survive with nothing left that could be called our own. <Click to read more>

I was five when I faced my first enemy. I watched helplessly as the man, who called me, ‘son’, poured kerosene over my mother. My hatred for him rose up in angry flames like the ones eating away at my mother’s skin, as I tried to pull him away from her. But he was too strong for me. I watched as my elder sister and brother ran out of the house in search of help, while I stayed behind. It was my first naked confrontation with the existence of the brutality in human beings. Help came with my uncle, who quickly put out the flames with buckets of water. From then on, I considered myself fatherless. <Click to read more>

If you or a loved one would like to support one of our graduates, please learn how you can donate to our college fund.