Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, May 24: Damini Sabar of Gulgulia (Sabar) community has become the cynosure of all eyes as she bagged first class marks in her matriculation examinations thereby bringing laurels for her mother and school. She is the first girl from the Sabar community to attain the distinction of being a Matriculate and that too by obtaining first division marks in the Class X Board Examination. She obtained 81% in Hindi, 63% in English, 60% in Mathematics, 65% in Science and 62% in Sanskrit aggregating 66.2%.
Having lost her father at an early age, her mother, Jasin Sabar took on the mantle of educating her daughter in spite of several constraints and Damini did not disappoint. Damini Sabar is a student of Kedarnath Jhunjhunwala High School.
Like many other families of their Gulgulia (Sabar) community, Jasin and her daughter Damini have taken up abode on vacant government land near the Block Office. They do not have any house of their own as they have not been provided government housing facility.
Being hutment settlers, most Sabar children are not keen on education and neither do their parents care much on this score. Perhaps, to earn their ‘two square morsels’ and live to fight another day of poverty is apparently more important.
However, Damini is built of stronger mettle. Poverty did not deter her and her widowed mother from moving towards the faint ray of light at the end of the dark, poverty-riddled tunnel. Damini was determined to study and her mother, Jasin stoked that fire while braving the pains and pangs that poverty brings in tow.
Damini teaches the children of her community and her students are imbibing her spirit. They may not understand the grandness of ‘teacher didi’ Damini’s success but can assess that she has achieved something great and that too, a first among the Sabar community. Damini’s mother Jasin whose joy at her daughter’s success is unrestrained, said, “Despair and struggle have shadowed us. Seeing my daughter’s eagerness to study, I resolved to slog it out for her to attain her objective. She has gifted me with joy. My Damini will study further until she attains what she seeks. My immediate aim is to register her at Kasturba Gandhi (residential) Girls’ High School.” Losing her father at an early age, seeing her mother struggling to quench her thirst for learning, fuelled her determination to surge ahead. “I intend going ahead, much ahead. I will take one stride at a time until I reach where I want to be. Where I want to be will depend on how I cover that path. Education is my beacon light and I will follow it. Simultaneously, I will share my learning with the children of my community. I want to see my Sabar fraternity, thus far all children of a lesser god, emerge from the darkness of poverty and bask under the sun of a brighter horizon.”