Educate a woman you educate a family, a nation.

It was in the 90s. Those were honeymoon days for me. I had just joined my husband who was stationed at Vizag. Our favorite pastime was going on late night bike rides. We would choose deserted by lanes and outskirts for our nightly jaunts. But to our horror we realized we were never alone. Where ever we went there were groups of chattering men and women going about their late night business of emptying their bowels. The headlights kept shining on the business end of these social groups, exposing their bare bottoms. And their attitude to us was one of ‘You have no business riding here now, disturbing our nightly ritual’. Needless to say we aborted our nocturnal bike rides for fear of stepping on people’s toes sorry faeces.
I wondered why they did this. Is it because of infrastructural inadequacies? Or is it because they could not afford it? Or is it because of the funny feeling of keeping your house clean since ‘I live here’. The streets don’t matter. Or maybe years of rural living has given them this deeply entrenched feeling that the result of natural functions is meant to enrich the soil. I remember the lady whose house I was going to rent. She pointed out to the broad neat lanes on either side of her house and said “You have enough place to defecate if you need so”. Not that there were no toilets in the house.
After a gap of almost 15 years I was back in Vizag again. There was a visible change everywhere. There were more school and college buses plying the roads. Girls in uniforms and satchels, well dressed ladies, working women – I was pleasantly surprised. I decided to go for a stroll but with downcast eyes in case I step on poop. Roads were clean. There were no “conference poop” late in the night anywhere. And I searched around for the answer. Chandra babu naidu, the then chief minister, with a vision to modernize and uplift the country had placed a strong impetus on Female education, empowerment and awareness. New schools and colleges exclusively for girls, more seats reserved for women, free education, subsidized higher studies, an effort to spread awareness about the importance of female participation and also greater emphasis on use of computer skills and technology were all not just policies but were clearly implemented.
When the daughters learnt they taught their mothers. The mother initiated the changes in the house and environment. Some of them told me about this bride they had heard about who refused to go join her husband till a toilet was built in his village home. I heard women talking about the dignity of the female sex, their rights and their privileges and the importance of civic responsibilities. No more open air defecation. I felt proud to be a woman. Teach her she will teach the world. Change her, everything will follow suit.