A magnificent childhood ensures memories of a life time. Shweta had an amazing time growing up in the Darjeeling. She grew up in a joint family along with her three younger sisters. Her father worked in Tea garden and that gave the kids full liberty to run to play in the tea gardens any time they wanted. It was always great fun as some of the gardens were right in front of their big house. Their daily routine included playing hide and seeks; and picking up as many tea leaves as they could. On some little adventurous day, they would try to climb the mountain just near their home. Weekends were always a blast as whole family used to visit famous Tiger hills, and yes Toy train ride was the compulsory fun activity.
Shweta was also passionate about singing. She was gifted with great voice and she won many singing competitions in the school. The life was going great and it was all fun, until one fateful day her father got diagnosed with horrific kidney disease. The sickness grew and her father was bed ridden for several months. This led to one problem after another – the tea garden contracts were lost, all financial savings were lost in the treatment, people cheated and ran away with the money, and many more. It was very tough. Shweta was only 7 years at that time. Due to increasing problems and deteriorating financial conditions, she was moved from private school to a lesser known school having moderate fees. Her father could never recover fully from that disease. Being the eldest, Shweta knew that she has a role to play in the family. She didn’t want her sisters to suffer so she sacrificed whenever she got a chance. She gave up her dream of singing as she knew it would cost good amount of money to continue. She handled her expenses carefully and like a mature person, stopped demanding things from the parents. As she reached 12th class, another tragedy struck when she herself got diagnosed with serious disease. Just before giving the Board exams, doctors declared her unfit and asked for immediate operation. Her one year was lost as she had no option but to spend the year waiting to finish her school.
The financial conditions were getting worse. Shweta decided to do something about this. She stopped playing in the evenings and started giving tuition classes to the students. The tuition earned her some money which she gave to her parents. She worked hard for the next year taking tuition classes and managing her studies. After 12th, there were not many options for Shweta in Darjeeling as the colleges there were expensive. At this moment she took a big decision and moved to the Udaipur city to stay with her Aunt and cousins. Here she enrolled in Gurunanak Girls college and started adjusting to the new city. The new place and new environment demanded more hard work and internal strength. Every day she used to miss her parents and her sisters, but she knew she had to keep going. While attending college she decided to do something to earn money. After attending college from 8 am to 11 am, she used to spend next 7 hours at her brother’s office to learn new computer technologies. This was completely new and unknown field, but she decided to learn as she had decided to become instructor. After learning the software courses, she joined her brother’s office as instructor. She started getting salary and used this money to pay her college semester fee. She felt strong; she knew she was slowly achieving something. At such young age she stopped being dependent and learned to stand on her own. Along with all this she never missed any house hold work – waking up early in the morning to cook for all, then college, then taking coaching classes, then coming back and cooking again – She was managing everything single-handedly.
The money she was earning as instructor was not much and she was constantly looking to get a good job so that she could support her sisters back at home. In 2018 she joined Arcgate and since then she never looked back. The safe and modern environment excited her. Once she started earning decent amount, she made sure that half of her salary goes to her parents. With her own money, she managed to get her younger sister enrolled in painting classes. Shweta couldn’t complete her dream of being a singer, but she is working hard to make sure her sisters don’t have to crush their dreams. She misses her family a lot; she misses those beautiful tea gardens of Darjeeling. It has been over one year since she has visited her family, but she has no qualms. She believes her hard work is paying off as today she is able to support her sisters and parents. She just wants to continue working hard and excel at her work place. Shweta’s life has been full of problems, but she never gives up. She makes sure that she continues to fight with all the issues; she doesn’t want to stop until all her sisters are well settled and her family has everything required for a comfortable life. Shweta doesn’t even consider this as sacrifice, she believes fighting these problems and overcoming them gives her great satisfaction, it gives her a sense of freedom and a feeling of achievement.