I was born on a cold winter morning against all the odds and my life won the battle against those three deadly words ‘It’s a girl’. I am Kavita and this is my story though many say it’s not real, it’s fictional but it’s mine nonetheless.

In India approximately 31 children are born every minute so a birth of a child shouldn’t have been a big issue but it is because I am a GIRL. And being alive is certainly a big accomplishment. Very few girl children survive every year in the small village I am born and I have my parents to be thankful to bring me in this world.

Some might say being alive is a blessing but visit my village someday and you’ll think otherwise. We grew up playing in sand but never making sand castles, we didn’t know what that were. We grew up playing with tyres, it’s the game I loved the most, as long as you keep hitting the tyre with a stick it keeps rolling and hit has to be precise just like life here. Everyone keeps pushing their limits to live and it isn’t easy. My rural village is in Rajasthan state.

Being blessed with well aware parents I started my education at the very young age, I used to love going to school and my books. I was a sincere student until one day my mother fell and broke her hand, I was ten years old then so naturally I took leave for few weeks and helped in household chores and the biggest task was of getting water for the house. We don’t have direct supply of water at our huts so we have to travel 1 kilometer to the common water point to get domestic water daily. My family consumes around 40 liters of water every day, I managed to bring only around 10-15 liters each day and that wasn’t the worst of it. I started having back pain but we don’t have any health facility we could afford so we did what all others children do, we let it pass without treatment and also my mother told me that back pain is a pert of life, I must accept it. With time I won’t even realize it’s there as I’ll learn to live with it. Continue reading “If only you dare to take a stand”