Imaya

No one would see her and believe she is a fighter. One who has just met her would describe her as a sweet little timid girl, with a soft voice and a big smile on her face ready to break into a joyous laugh at a moments notice. That is how I also described her when I first met this 24year old working with children at Vanavil, a school run by an NGO. This school houses children who when you ask, "what would you be doing if not for Vanavil?" would say, "I will be begging or stealing and selling combs and stickers on the streets." The children here are from communities of people who believe in early marriage of their girls and do not believe family planning. The children come from families where the father is a drunkard, mother runs away with someone, uncle sexually abuses them and so on. Working with such children must indeed be a daunting task. Getting them interested in education, believing in them, understanding their background, bringing them back every time they run away and fighting with the government for them are some of the mandates for Imaya, the project manager of Vanavil. That she has taken on such a humongous responsibility itself should have told me how tough this girl is.

She is the daughter of a noted neurologist from Tanjore hailing from a well-to-do and well educated family who had big plans for their daughters education and future. Their dream for Imaya was simple. It involved, getting her to do engineering, masters in the same, marriage to some other well-to-do family boy who was working abroad and bear children within a year after marriage. Did Imaya share this same dream? She chose to differ, thank you. She did do her engineering. By the time she finished her bachelors she was pretty sure that engineering was not her cup of tea. Still not knowing what else she wanted she pursued her masters.

During her masters she started involving herself with social activists and slowly volunteered to take part in programs organized by those who wanted to change the functioning of various social practices in the country. That introduced her to working with down trodden children. That is when she realized that this is what she was going to do. Soon after her masters she informed her shocked parents that she was going to join Vanavil in the port town of Nagapattinam, a few hours from Tanjore and work with communities that her parents have not even heard off or bothered knowing about.

She came to Nagapattinam refusing proposal for marriage. At her heels came her parents and saw the kind of children and people Imaya had to work with. They begged her to return and she refused, then they begged those running Vanavil to let Imaya go which didn’t work, then they tried to brainwash Imaya into disliking her organization by saying not-so-nice things about those who run Vanavil but Imaya knew her friends better than her parents did, then one more attempt was made to use political influence and threaten those running Vanavil which finally made Imaya relent a bit. She agreed to go home with her parents but only to talk and not to leave Vanavil.

Her parents sent her off to Singapore for a holiday with no intention of bringing her back because they did not want her doing the job she liked to do. They took away her passport and visa and refused to let her come back to India. Imaya gathered strength enough to threaten them that she would go to the police if she was not allowed to get back to India.

Now she is back with Vanavil doing what she loves best. Her parents allowed this? No way, they think she is now working in an IT company in Chennai living with a few girls in an apartment. They have no clue that she is just 3hrs away from them doing exactly the thing they do not want her to do-following her passion.