“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”- Nelson Mandela
A very cute girl Barbie who hails from Sonapur, Assam reads in class 9. She is a community cohort of a state based NGO. She is a very lazy girl. She has no interest in studies. She likes to pass time idly. For this reason, her mother always scolds her. So, she remained offended with her mother. Therefore, she got very curious to know why her mom behaves with her like this. For this task, she consulted her facilitator. She asked him if she could ask her mother and grandmother any sort of questions regarding this situation and the facilitator allowed her to ask anything. She decided to go with some questions. First she wanted to know at what age her granny and mom got married. To her utter shock, she came to know that her granny and mom got married at the age of 9 and 16 respectively. She was surprised to know that and asked them how they got married so early. In reply, they told that though they wanted to study in schools, they couldn’t but had to get married. They had no other opportunities. Moreover, it was very hard for her to believe that her mother and granny got married to sufficiently older persons. At that point of time, they could not choose their own partners and had to go with the choices made by their families for them. Also, without their wish they had to do every household chore. They could never go out without the permission of their husbands or in laws. The ladies in the houses had no formal education literally. Then she went to her grandpa to ask why he didn’t allow her grandma do anything she liked. Grandpa to Barbie’s question replied that, times were very different from the present scenario. During the whole conversation, she understood that in earlier times, there was not much value of education. The male members were also not even high school attendees. Then, she came to her father to ask similar type of questions. The answers were pretty similar. However, they have something very common in their replies. Situations and thoughts changed, mentality of people has drastically changed over time. There were many loopholes in ancient times about the functioning of the society but they are being tried to rectify continuously. Now everyone knows the value of education. Only education is the ultimate factor for success. So, everyone is after Barbie’s education. After realizing their state of mind, she realized the importance of education and why their family members are trying to educate her to their level best. She realizes how much privileged she is to have got education. There is a greater cause behind her mom and grandpa scolding her for studying. After knowing all these, she became a much more matured girl. Since then, she has valued education the most in life. She also understood the worth of time and that it should not be wasted idly because times flies in the blink of an eye.