Difficulties being a girl in engineering (STEM) at IIT Kanpur?
Whatever I experienced, especially I, since mine was such a unique perspective. Most of us there were footloose and fancy-free at IIT Kanpur.
Before I was enrolled at IIT Kanpur, my mother had left us. She was suffering from two heart valves damaged and acute asthma. She left behind seven children and a father who knew nothing about running and raising seven children. My father was a writer and a politician in a country where there was no freedom and citizens were totally under the control of an autocratic tyrannical regime. In 1941 was imprisoned for 18 years for charges against trying to overthrow the Rana regime. After the overthrow was successful in the year 1951 new selfish rulers sidelined him because he demanded radical reform in the system, which is a typical scenario in underdeveloped countries to discourage such people. People who lost property while fighting for freedom in the country mostly suffered even more and they all used to visit out house venting out frustrations and anger. To quench my father's anger my mother had brilliantly managed his high temper by encouraging writing books. His articles and books covered mostly promoting radical transformation of a system and government used to be ban them. We always had large numbers of visitors in the house and my mother used to love feeding them even at the cost of scarce financial resources. My mothers had no treatment due to local poor health services and financial constraints.
My mother struggled hard raising seven children single handedly. She never ever allowed my father to take up a job in order to support the seven children. With limited financial resources, my mother used to expand rented areas rooms of our house in order to cover up that growing financial burden of the family, feeding frustrated and demoralized politicians of Nepal in our house. This way she used free up the tension of my pampered father. The death of my mother brought a huge disruption in the life of my father. My aunt sitting next to the dead body of my mother was crying "who will look after this eighth child of this dead mother". People worried more for my father than seven children who were of young and of vulnerable age. My father used to be called eight children among seven children with no experience of raising seven children and looking after household chores. He was more focused in writing, delivering speeches in India being invited by h famous writers like Dharam Vir Bharati, Dr. Ambedkar, Pandit Rahul Sanskrtyana and others who have lived in our house called Yami Chhn - Yami house. He was also known among Chita Gau leaders, Bangladesh. Invitations for attending programs and delivering speeches continued pouring from groups of above high-level dignitaries of India even after their passing away.
My house used to be flooded with visitors of my father most of them writers, poets frustrated political leaders etc. My mother used to feed them well in spite of financial and resource constraints. My father used to be arrested also.
My mother used to encourage my father to write. My father's books and other publications in print media expressed the demand for radical reform of the governance system, political, social, cultural transformation with special emphasis on inclusion issues. Most of his materials used to be banned. My father used to be arrested. The 1957 incidence of arrest of my father always traumatized seven children with scary machine gun army swarming into our residence compound. We were too young to understand all these complications going on at home. We children did not know what was going on then. With failing health, she tried hard to convince us to focus on STEM subjects in school before she passed away in 1970.
In absence of my mother IIT Kanpur holidays visits at home used to be too confusing and used to return with tons of tension making me unable to focus on my studies. I used to wonder why my father was not worried of the problems of seven children. We seven children used to be too scared to discuss with him. We got into the habit helping each other rather than disturbing our busy father. I used to come back to IIT K with lot of worries. A couple of times I even thought about writing to him complaining about his negligence in family matters putting us in a helpless state, however, I didn't dare to write back. I was very scared of him.
I used to cry during evening times worrying about my sisters and father in the first semester of first year of IIT Kanpur. My father used to write, “You children lost mother. I too my mother, a great life partner and great mentor and I have been orphaned. I lost so much more". I shared my pain with Savita Gupta, Ph D student, from the mathematics department who suggested that I could try bringing the youngest sister Hisila and get her enrolled in IIT Kanpur central school. My brother came to drop Hisila. He was very because Hisila was a hyperactive child. When he brought her to IIT K he told me how Hisila was jumping inside the engine room asking for permission to throw coal into the furnace in the running train. She was rushing towards the cockpit and talking to the pilot and co-pilot in Kathmandu Patna flight. She just would not sit still anywhere. My brother worried how I would manage to keep her in IIT Kanpur. How many girls from those days can give that perspective - there will be then a message for someone who struggles today with similar family burdens. My sisters Dharma, Chirika and Nhucha Shobha and Kayo visited IIT K too. We all made sure that all seven of us took STEM subjects. We used to go around encouraging children of relatives, neighbours and friends to take up STEM subjects as per the wish of my mother. Daughters used to be encouraged to study only arts subjects and used to land up as brides at very youg age during our time dropping the academics. IIT Kanpur helped us even more to promote such issues among the communities in Nepal to completely change every aspect of society.
I had a hard time taking care of hyperactive sister Hisila and had to carry on with the role of mother, were always worrying about the three sisters who were left behind at home almost without guardians to look after. Every time I went home for vacation I used to return with a head full of problems at home. I used to often write letters to sisters back at home and worry all the time instead of focusing on my homework and class room. I used to share with Vini Nigam, my batchmate, about problems at home. She often told me that I would be better off going back home rather than studying at IIT K with so much load of worries in my head. She seriously felt that I should not continue with such tension in my head.
In the gender biased STEAM engineering program of IIT K. There were 400 boys and only two girls in my batch. 1977 B Tech batch had no girls and that class used to be called bachelor batch. I hardly talked to the boys in my class all throughout B. Tech program.
The girls with varied background in IIT - 99% very serious, studious, focused. Some girls' backgrounds were different – some came from part of an elite group -Science Talent Scholars focusing on a professional future.
STEM - somehow, in India, while studying the sciences, one of my friends Surya Prava Jagannatha who was pursuing her Master’s degree from Chemistry I never felt differentiated because of her sex / gender. In IITs, in the Engineering programs – one girl, two girls or none in a batch. In general, in India, at least in the community of South Indians, girls were thought to be more serious about studies than the boys.
I do not think we girls at IIT Kanpur had difficulty being in STEM engineering. I'd say girls had a supportive environment. The gap in English standard of Nepal and IIT Kanpur was high and I was lucky to get help from Neeru Mohan who was my student guide, final year student, B Tech program. There was a big gap in academic standard of Nepal and India. I was more focussed on raising my sister Hisila than worrying about competing among top ranking cream students of India.
The Memorable Day – My Father’s Visit to IIT-Kanpur
The most memorable days were when my father visited me in the year 1975 at IIT-Kanpur, after I had repeated relapse of Typhoid. I took him to one of the lecture-halls "L-7”. Inside the classroom, he told me "Why do you attend classes? I never went to any classroom to study, and I authored more than twenty popular books. You are supposed to do self-learning and not depend on any teacher." He never appreciated my engineering program. He felt sad that I did not take up the journalism course. I was not fully aware then that my father was well known for his passion for self-learning, his reputation as a renowned scholar and a popular writer. I was not of the age then to understand this dimension of my father when my mind was so focused with the highly technically intensive knowledge program of IITK. He asked me if I could call the students and faculty members so that he could deliver a lecture in that big L7 lecture-hall. I worried if the audience with different backgrounds would appreciate my father's lecture. I was unaware of the procedures of such lecture-events of different sectors especially from the political background of my father and I could not inform anyone then. I wish that I had communicated this to my batch mates who would have provided the right advice on arranging this guest lecture. Had I been able to manage this arrangement, my father would have surely delivered a five hours long lecture on the importance of self-studies, social transformation, political transformation, and Buddhism to shake-up the top technical brains of IIT-Kanpur. Two months after departing from IIT K, we two sisters received shocking news through a telegram about his death in Kathmandu. In the reading room of GH I came across an article with the photographs of my father in Dharmayug magazine written by Mr. Brahmanda Mishra, editor, Dharmayug, Times of India. Dharmyug was a Hindi pictorial weekly published by The Times of India group from year 1949 until 1993.
The experiences and perspective I carried was unique compared to other girls of the hostel at IIT Kanpur.