By Shyam Pandharipande, IANS
Bhandara (Maharashtra) : The daughter of a widowed farm labourer who aspires to be an administrator has won free admission into a college here after scoring 86 percent in the Class 10 school examination.
Bhagyashree Bansod, whose father died six years ago, has been offered free admission into the Lal Bahadur Shastri College here after she said she wanted to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) one day.
Bhagyashree is a resident of the Backward Class Girls' Hostel in this Maharashtra town and recently cleared the state education board secondary school certificate (SSC) examination.
She studied in the local St. Paul's English School while her mother Kanta toiled in the fields in Khamari village.
A quiet girl focussed on her studies, Bhagyashree joined the school in Class 4 and would travel from Khamari to the town, 13 km away, sometimes on her bicycle and sometimes by bus.
She opted for St. Paul's as she had studied in an English medium school in Nagpur till Class 3 where her father had been a bus conductor.
After his death, the girl's mother later moved to their ancestral village and became a farm labourer. With her meagre income, she could barely educate her three children.
Bhagyashree got her guardian angel in hostel warden Rajani Vaidya, who paid for the tuitions of the hard working student.
"Watching Bhagyashree burn midnight oil right from the beginning of the academic session, I decided to send her for tuitions to supplement her effort" Rajani told IANS.
Now that she has done so well, the Maharashtra social welfare department has recommended Bhagyashree's name for the Rajashree Shahu Maharaj award and scholarship.
The shy girl has confided to the warden that she aspires to be an IAS officer.
Bhagyashree is very grateful to Rajani Vaidya, her teachers and the government officials who have recommended her case for scholarship.
And how about her mother? "Oh, woh to meri jaan hain! (She is my life!)," comes the answer, after a long pause.
Bhagyashree is happy that all six girls in the hostel who appeared for the SSC exam passed in first division, two of them scoring above 70 percent.
(Shyam Pandharipande can be contacted at : [email protected] )