16-yr-old who resisted marriage scores 92% in Class 10 exams
BALURGHAT, WEST BENGAL: Swapna Roy never had any exam blues, as the problems she was dealing with were of a more pressing nature — her father had fixed her marriage with a brick kiln labourer and told her to drop out of school three months before the Class 10 exams.
Now that the 16-year-old has scored 92% marks and topped her school in West Bengal’s North Dinajpur district, her father Mahen Roy is relieved that the local administration did not let him marry his daughter off. “I can’t believe what a mistake I was about to make by forcing her to drop out,” he says.
“One day, my father came to our hostel and took me home, saying I was to be married off,” Swapna recalls. Mahen and his wife, both brick kiln labourers, lived in severe poverty and could barely afford their two daughters’ education. The sisters had been sent to study at Balurghat Girls high school which offered free hostel facility.
Swapna tried to avert the marriage but her father did not relent. She turned to her teachers for help, who approached the block development officer Biswajit Sarkar for his assistance. The BDO took immediate action and the wedding was cancelled. Mahen was offered financial help with his daughters’ education and a loan to build a house under the Gitanjali Awasan Project.
Swapna returned to school and went on to score 99% in mathematics, 100% in physical sciences, 97% in life sciences, 91% in history, 93% in geography, 76% in English and 92% in Bengali.
She wants to study humanities, attend university and become a teacher. “I know I am eligible to study science at any good school,” she says. “But I’ll not be able to buy the expensive books and lab items. So, I have decided to study arts at my school.”