"What does it mean to 'boycott' a man?" he asked, calling on Seema and referring to one of the characters in the story.
"Nobody talks to him -- nobody moves around with him," Seema answered, before sitting down with a relieved look.
Seema Mahato, left, rides her bike home from school with friends. She got the bike under a plan to boost school attendance among girls by cutting travel time.
(Photos John Lancaster -- The Washington Post)
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The teacher nodded his approval, then called on another student to explain why villagers were avoiding the man. "Because he sings Hindi movie songs and winks at women!" the girl said in mock horror. The class erupted in laughter.
When lunch break was announced with the clang of a hand-rung steel bar -- the school has no electricity -- Seema confided she was working exceptionally hard in science because she wants to be a nurse. "I will become something with this education," she declared.
Stealing Time to Study
As night fell in Kudri, Seema sat on her haunches in the kitchen and prepared dinner. Working by the light of a tiny oil lamp, she chopped potatoes for a meatless curry, then mixed flour and water to make dough for flatbread. Finally, with the potatoes simmering on the stove, Seema tried to excuse herself to do her math homework.
But her mother, a stout woman whose vermilion-streaked hair part denotes her status as a married Hindu woman, ordered her to cook the bread. After an irritated retort, Seema started rolling out the dough in individual portions, which she then fried on a griddle. The process took nearly an hour, and Seema was the last to eat. At 9:55, she pulled out her pencil box, then struggled with geometry problems for half an hour before flopping onto the hard wooden pallet she shares with her younger sister.
"When I'm not attending school or doing homework, I'm doing housework," she said. During harvest season, her parents often pull her out of school to help them in the fields. Last year, she missed nearly 25 days that way.
In order to ease such pressures, Jharkhand state has, since 2001, given away 10,000 bicycles to disadvantaged schoolgirls between the ages of 13 and 17, according to Kiro, the welfare official. The purpose is to reward girls for staying enrolled, create more time for their studies and ease parents' fears about their daughters' safety during long, unescorted walks to school.
Staying in School
Before she got her bicycle in early 2002, Seema used to spend nearly an hour walking each way to and from school. Now she makes the trip in about 20 minutes, whizzing past glistening green rice paddies on a maroon one-speed with pictures of Bollywood movie stars pasted to the mud flaps. The bicycle has allowed her to squeeze in extra tutoring before school and devote more time to helping her mother around the house.
School officials say they have noticed a significant improvement in girls' attendance rates and academic performance since the program started, with the share of those passing their final exams rising from 35 percent to 55 percent in just two years.
But as Seema discovered one day last March, a bicycle by itself is no panacea. The news in her report card could hardly have been worse: She had failed her final exams in math, science and English and would have to repeat the 9th grade. Weeping inconsolably, she went to see her English teacher and informal mentor, Lucy Hansda, who pulled her into an empty classroom to try to calm her down.
"I'm a girl; they won't let me study," Hansda, 34, recalled the teenager saying of her parents between sobs. After Seema warned that her mother would use the failing grades as an excuse to pull her out of school, Hansda, an Ursuline nun with a warm manner and a ready smile, promised to intercede.
During a meeting two days later at Hansda's convent, Seema's mother, Vimla, told the teacher that Seema would have to end her schooling because the family could no longer afford the cost of supplies and the annual tuition of 540 rupees, or $11, both women recalled.
But Hansda proved an effective ally. "Whatever you do, don't pull her out of school," Seema's mother recounted Hansda saying over the course of a lengthy, emotional conversation. "This is her age to study, and if you pull her out of school now, her life will be ruined."
Hansda told Vimla Mahato that she could pay Seema's tuition in installments and that the school would cover the cost of her daughter's notebooks. After a long chat that night, Seema's mother and father agreed to keep their daughter in school, at least for the time being.
Seema has another ally in her aunt, Shanti Devi, 34, her father's younger sister and the only member of the family to attend college.
During a visit to Kudri in June, Devi said she was distressed to hear that the teenager had almost been pulled out of school. She privately promised Seema that she would help pay for her schooling through the 12th grade, and even through college if she made it that far. "This is a secret plan of mine and my aunt," Seema said. "I'll convince my parents to delay my marriage if I pass the 10th grade."
One measure of Seema's enthusiasm for school is the effort she puts into getting ready for it. In the morning, after clearing away the breakfast dishes, she knelt in front of a small mirror. With a look of intense concentration, she plaited her hair, moisturized her face with cream and finished it off with a dusting of talcum powder.
Then she changed into her uniform, hopped onto her bike and pedaled off. Her braids streamed in the wind as the bicycle gathered speed.
