Post News Network
Rourkela, Jan 8: Sureswari Chhatria, an 18-year-old girl of Sector-3 slum of this city, is firm to get a decent job and bring smile on the lips of her mentally challenged mother. Sureswari ekes out a living by cleaning dishes at several houses.
Apart from feeding her mother, this college-going girl, who no longer remembers the looks of her father, manages to save something to spend on her own education. Even though it means she has to go without food for several days in a month.
Welfare projects of the government have not been of much help to her. Had the district administration or any generous organisation come forward with financial assistance, it would have made her life little easier, Sureswari told this reporter in moist eyes.
According to reports, the girl’s father left her mother Mahadei when the child was just two-years old. However, they found shelter in the house of Subidha Mahananda, Mahadei’s mother in-law, who tried her best to support them despite her poor financial condition.
Meanwhile, Sureswari, a Class VI student, started cleaning dishes in a number of houses in the area to supplement her grandma’s earning at the age of 10.
After losing her husband years back, Mahadei lost her mental balance after seeing Sureswari working at such a tender age. It forced the girl to wind up her study.
But her fortune took a positive turn after school’s headmistress asked Sureswari not to give up study when the latter went to collect her transfer certificate (TC). The teacher waived her tuition fees for the rest of her classes in the school. This proved to be a turning point in her life and she got the motivation to surge ahead.
Sureswari resumed study by putting her heart and soul into it. Her hard work paid off and she cleared matriculation examination in first class. With the money she saved from her earning, she took admission in Plus II of Sushilabati Women College of Sector-2 of the city.
Sureswari’s schedule for the day includes leaving for job at 7 am, returning home by 9 am after washing dishes in two to three houses, leaving for college after serving lunch to her mother, again serving tiffin to mother after her return from college by 4 pm and leaving for work in other’s houses after taking something for herself.
She often borrows books from her friends as the money falls short to buy text books after meeting the expenses of her study and the duo’s food cost.
Her tear glands open up when she fails to get books from her classmates and she surrenders herself to the Almighty expecting some miracle in her life.
