Ring the Bell

"Coming.." I answered for the 5th time to the person who was standing outside and recklessly pressing the doorbell for the past 10 minutes.
I tried forcing myself to land my legs on the floor to wake up but couldn’t succeed. I covered my face with blanket and went back to sleep again.

This time my mobile buzzed and I answered in a sleepy tone, "hello".
I could hear my maid’s voice from the other end requesting me to open the door as she was buzzing it for the past 10 minutes. Finally I opened the door with my regular sentence, “Sorry, was watching movie late night. Couldn’t get up at all when you rang the doorbell”
She gave me a nasty smile and walked towards the kitchen to kick off with her work as she knew this was my default dialogue over every Sunday morning. 

While brushing my teeth, I asked her about her kids just to keep up the conversation, (being a working women it is very difficult for me to even say Hi to her during week days) .
With proud she said, "All started going to school". I was happy to hear her kid’s studying.  Meanwhile I finished my brushing and was heading toward sofa, she gave coffee along with an application form to be filled in. As it was in English she requested me to help her.

It was actually an application form to open new account in a bank. After I had written her full name in BOLD letters, went to the second field which was Date of birth. While I asked her date of birth (in my mind based on her physical appearance I concluded that she must be in her late 30’s.) While I was deciding on her age she responded “Madam its Oct 2nd 1990”

I was shocked that she is much younger to me. With this big surprise I completed filling her form. She continued with her work but my thoughts were around her.

She has 4 children at the age of 22. As per my guess, she should have been married at age 12 and had the first child at age of 13. While all these was running in my mind she said she have finished the work and will take leave.

I stopped her for a moment and out of anxiety/ curiosity asked her, if she doesn’t take me wrong can she tell me Is her family from very rural place?
She answered, "Ours is town not village”.
Then I couldn’t stop myself asking her next question that, then why did she get married so soon?
For that she replied, she was very good in studies and dreamed to become a teacher. But her parents were not interested in girls getting education. So they stopped her studies after she finished 5th and in couple of years they got her married, as her parents felt a girl child is a burden and she was not strong enough to oppose them. So she had to marry the person whom they said. She thought she will convince her husband after marriage for further studies, but her in laws wanted kid and so on..
Her whole life was twisted.

While she was about to take leave she said, "I will not do injustice to my four female kids."
I felt very proud for her but felt guilty for losing a Teacher.

There are number of children who get married at very early stage. Pease stop the Child marriage and empower the girls by offering them opportunities to gain skills and education. This is happening to our sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and daughters around the world. Its our time to wake up and Ring the bell.

This post is submitted Ring The Bell for IndiChange contest