NEW DELHI: On Saturday, Miranda House student Chetna turned 18. But there were no birthday parties for her. She was instead on a campaign trail of the colleges in Delhi University as the youngest contestant in the DUSU polls.
Born in Sirohi, Rajasthan, Chetna claims she is the first girl to have ventured out from her village to study in the capital. “It is all because of the efforts of my brother, who has been a student of Shivaji College for the past three years. It was he who convinced my parents to also send me to DU,” the teenager said.
Chetna studied in a Hindi medium school and had little idea about the outside world. “Most girls in our village did not study beyond school or when they did, they went to the private college in the municipal town of Abu Road,” she said.
It was only after coming to DU that she realised “how big the world is”. She marvelled, “Here I saw that life can be very different from the village. Never have I experienced such an open environment where all sorts of discussions take place.”
Daughter of a government school teacher, Chetna said that she had not heard of Miranda House. “It was only after I scored good marks in Class XII that I was told about Miranda House,” she disclosed.
Much like her fortuitous arrival in DU, Chetna’s tryst with politics took a definitive turn when she ran into members of AISA protesting on the Arts Faculty lawns in support of longer library hours. “I discovered students could agitate for their rights and demands and this inspired me to join politics.’
The youngster, who is an AISA candidate for the joint secretary’s post, said that age was not a poll factor. “There is no certainty that I will become politically intelligent when I am 30 years old,” she quipped. “It is instead about how well you perceive and assess the realities around you and how you react to them.”
Born in Sirohi, Rajasthan, Chetna claims she is the first girl to have ventured out from her village to study in the capital. “It is all because of the efforts of my brother, who has been a student of Shivaji College for the past three years. It was he who convinced my parents to also send me to DU,” the teenager said.
Chetna studied in a Hindi medium school and had little idea about the outside world. “Most girls in our village did not study beyond school or when they did, they went to the private college in the municipal town of Abu Road,” she said.
It was only after coming to DU that she realised “how big the world is”. She marvelled, “Here I saw that life can be very different from the village. Never have I experienced such an open environment where all sorts of discussions take place.”
Daughter of a government school teacher, Chetna said that she had not heard of Miranda House. “It was only after I scored good marks in Class XII that I was told about Miranda House,” she disclosed.
Much like her fortuitous arrival in DU, Chetna’s tryst with politics took a definitive turn when she ran into members of AISA protesting on the Arts Faculty lawns in support of longer library hours. “I discovered students could agitate for their rights and demands and this inspired me to join politics.’
The youngster, who is an AISA candidate for the joint secretary’s post, said that age was not a poll factor. “There is no certainty that I will become politically intelligent when I am 30 years old,” she quipped. “It is instead about how well you perceive and assess the realities around you and how you react to them.”
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