What is your name? What is your age? What is your village?
- My name is Kanchan Udawat. I am 13 year old, from Jaitpura.
When did you come to the hostel?
- I”ve been here 17 months.
Describe your family. Describe the family members, who they are, their ages, etc. Tell how it is to live with your family. What were the hardships and challenges that you faced, living at home?
- We are middle class. There are my mother, father and one brother, who is ten. My father is a farmer. We have not much money. In the village I could not get an education after grade five.
What did you do before you came to the hostel? Work? Study? What challenges do you encounter here at the hostel?
- None.
Do you like the hostel, the school? In what ways do you like or dislike them?
- I like it here very much. We have fun. There are no problems. I can learn here. I like living in a group.
What makes you happy?
- Funny girls. All the activities here.
If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
- Go to university. (To pay for my college I will teach and save money.)
Start a hospital in my village.
Go to America.
What would you like to do in the future?
- I want to be a doctor.
I want to teach people not to cheat each other and steal from each other. (She saw poor people cheating poorer people in a film clip.)
What is your favorite thing?
- Chocolate ice cream, singing and dancing, my friend Sunita, using the computer.
What would you have if you could have anything in the world?
- I want to become a doctor. I want to build hospitals and schools in my village.
Tell me about your mother.
- My mother told me, “I did not study, but I want you to study and to become someone important.”
She is very polite, has very good behavior. She studied up to the 8th level. She is pretty, a good cook. I am lucky that she is my mother.
What makes you cry?
- When girls fight with me it is very upsetting. I don’t like verbal fights. I avoid them.