Flower seller gets admission in top US university for PHD
Sarita Mali, 28, who used to accompany her father in selling flower garlands on the streets of Mumbai, is now getting admission to the University of California for a PHD.
She is currently pursuing her PHD in Hindi Literature at Indian Language Centre at JNU. She has donemaandm.philfromjnuand in July, she will submit her PHD. “I feel there are ups and downs in everyone’s life. Everyone has his/her stories and sufferings. This is decided in which society one is born andwhatlifeyouget.unfortunately or fortunately in some sense, I was born in a society where problems were the most essential part of my life,” said Sarita.
During festivals, she used to sell flowers with her father, especially at big festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali, and Dussehra. She has done this work with her father during school time. Otherwise, whenever she used to go on vacations from JNU, she used to make flower garlands. For the past two years, as the pandemic hit, her father’s work halted. Before that, they all used to do this work. This work has been part of their lives. Since she opened her eyes, she has seen only flowers. So, this was her society where on one side, there were struggles and on the other side, there was hope. There were problems and there was a passion to do hard work as well. The same passion and support of her family have brought her here, she added.
Due to lockdown, her father went to his hometown in Badlapur in Jaunpur. Talking about the turningpointofherlife,malisaid:“jnu is the turning point of my life. Getting admitted to JNU in MA is the turning point of my life. Had I not got admission here, I don’t know where I would’ve been. A university like JNU gives abundant hope to people coming from the society where I belong to.”
In 2010, one of her cousins mentioned to her about JNU and many things were unknown to her. So suddenly they said, ‘whosoever goes to JNU becomes something’. That particular line got stuck somewhere in her mind. She started her preparation for JNU in her BA first year. She got selected for the last seat of OBC in JNU for her master’s, she said. — ani