The Quest For Freedom : Struggle of A Small Town Girl - Ankita Patel - NITIE - Celebrating Womanhood On InsideIIM
Freedom is not concerned just with me but with each and every girl child of my village. I am Ankita Patel and I come from a village called Singharwa, near Ahmedabad. Pursuing my education had been a challenge since my school days. Due to lack of proper educational infrastructure at my village, I had to travel for 2 hours in a crowded bus, daily to reach my school during my 11th and 12th standard. After high school came college and this is when the entire village had taken it upon themselves to deny me the higher education I aspired to pursue. Several attempts to persuade my parents to prevent me from studying further were made by the village folk who always had so much to say like, “Who will marry your daughter once she’s educated?”, “Why spend so much on education when you use it for her marriage?”, “She will develop a big ego which will be detrimental to her marriage later on…”. But thankfully, my parents did not get swayed. They understood the importance of education and allowed me to go to college.







