Two years ago, when Yukta started her marketing and management course in a Delhi college, she became the first girl from her village to come this far. To my admiration, the perky, pretty girl took up an evening job at a pizza parlour. If I ever wanted pizzas, she offered proudly, she could get me a 40 per cent employee discount. It seemed to me that she had more fire in her belly than her other, more privileged college friends. But the following year, I heard the first disquieting news from Yukta's end. Because of lack of attendance, she was not being allowed to take her second year exams. I advised her to continue with her job, focus on attendance and attempt the exams the following year. "But I've lost one year due to no fault of mine!" said the teen, "is it a crime for a college girl to want some fun?"
Soon after, I discovered that she was planning to drop out of college since the pizza parlour had offered her a full-time position. Before I could remonstrate with her, she dropped off the radar. "She's gone to the village because her grandfather's ill," said her mother, who worked as a domestic in a neighbour's house. For months I had no news from her.
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Then I saw her one morning, wearing her trademark shorts and girlish hairband, crooning to a baby. My greeting was glad, hers uncharacteristically subdued.
"Whose baby are you holding?" I asked. "This is my daughter, she's five months old," she said. "I met Rohit while in the parlour and decided that I wanted to spend my life with him instead of chasing after a college education..." Later her mother told me that Yukta was involved with Rohit and became pregnant. She was eighteen, he, barely seventeen. "They eventually married when Yukta was about seven months pregnant and he legally old enough," she said.
Yukta's new in-laws were not exactly thrilled with this turn of events. "They actually blamed me for the pregnancy!" said Yukta incredulously. I looked sadly at the teen in her Hello Kitty t-shirt, wondering if she realised that she was the human face of the teenage pregnancy statistics one read of in the papers. According to the third National Family Health Survey, 47 per cent girls in India get married before the age of 18. Only seven per cent of 15-19 year-olds surveyed, use birth control. So, early marriage and early pregnancy are strongly correlated. The in-laws had vented their frustration on Yukta one night. They had beaten her severely and she escaped by calling the cops. Rohit moved out with her.
The impecunious young couple has now rented a room in the village behind my neighbourhood. Her early pregnancy has meant lost opportunities for her as well as Rohit, who has left studies and taken up a job as a hospital orderly. Yukta may not be able to resume her classes or her job for some time either. Every evening, she walks in the park, happily crooning her baby to sleep. I watch, and wonder at the tragedy of the girl who just wanted to have some fun...