Fifteen years ago, when I used to live in the heart of rural Uttar Pradesh, most of the villagers I knew there had no clue about their age. They would say vaguely that they'd been born in the year when their grandfather died, or during a long ago summer outbreak of cholera. They weren't too fussy about sending their kids to school either. Their daughters tended to drop out after class five, while the sons hung on until class eight when they faced their first exam. Given the quality of schooling available, most flunked at this stage and dropped out. In the last few years that I have lived in New Delhi, the picture has been completely different. Most kids I've met go to school and know exactly how old they are. The capital has one of the country's highest literacy rates (86.734 per cent as per the Economic Survey 2011-12) while Uttar Pradesh has one of the lowest (69.72 per cent). I used to attribute this rural-urban divide to the fact that most reforms are put into action in New Delhi first, before they trickle down slowly to rural areas.
Last week, I met Jamuna, who gave me food for thought. I met her when she accidentally dropped a pile of dust from the balcony she was cleaning. Coughing and spluttering, I looked up to the wielder of the errant broom. It was a young girl, no more than 15 years old. "Sorry," she said, twirling the broom saucily, "I didn't see you." Later I saw the young girl cleaning the driveway and stopped for a chat.
She was only temporarily working here, Jamuna informed me, substituting for an ill aunt. Since she looked no older than 15, it made sense. I asked her how old she was. "I don't know how old I am, but I don't think I'm too young either," she said. She said that she was the eldest of her parents' eight children, and none of them knew exactly how old they were. "We were all born in our village near Bareilly, where these formalities still don't matter," she said. Had she not been to school? Jamuna shrugged: "my younger siblings go, but I dropped out some time ago." She said that when she was in class four a few years ago, her family went back to their village to help with the harvest. "When we all ended up staying to help with the sowing of the next crop, the private school I was studying in, struck my name off the rolls," she said.
A quick chat with her aunt revealed that her family was relatively well off. They owned a house in a slum near Munirka and Jamuna's father regularly sent the money he made from his job as a watchman, back home to his village. Neither of her parents was educated. "In our village, girls don't step out of the house once they reach puberty. It takes a jiffy for them to get spoilt!" she said, explaining why Jamuna stayed at home. "Soon," she said, "we will find a good match for her as per village tradition." It seemed the family had lived in Delhi for the last two decades but continued, as far as possible, with their village ways.
The image of Jamuna's anachronistic figure holding the broom stayed with me long after I returned. The Economic Survey and National Census told their own story in bald numbers. But Jamuna showed me how people such as her carried the rural-urban divide on their frail shoulders wherever they went, perpetuating village-like statistics long after they had moved to the city.
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