Inheritance

India represents the second most populous country in the world, after China. With well over a billion people representing a variety of ethnic groups, religions, heritage and traditions, the administration of the country is a wieldy affair and the struggle for basic existence afflicts countless millions of its people. Among the hard-working poor with aspirations to drag themselves into the bottom rungs of the rising middle class, what kind of inheritance can a father whose construction work keeps his children fed, give to those children?

If the parents are uneducated -- if they come from a long tradition of struggling destution for whom formal education represents a luxury never dreamed of for children who, coming 'of age' the future promises years of hard labour and few opportunities to rise above that legacy of poverty -- what can they possibly have been able to transmit to their children? There are, it seems, always exceptions to any general rule. Poverty does not necessarily breed lack of brain power.

And although India in particular has bred more than its share of people whose innovative, creative and thinking abilities rise above whatever is considered the norm, there are clearly those unusual instances when even that signal accomplishment can be surpassed by children of truly rare capabilities and a cognition that puts all others to blink in astonishment.

In this Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013 photo, Sushma Verma, 13, does her homework at her house in Lucknow, India. Verma, from a poor family in north India, enrolled in a master's degree in microbiology, after her father sold his land to pay for some of his daughter's tuition in the hope of catapulting her into India's growing middle class.(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

"They allowed me to do what I wanted to do. I hope that other parents don't impose their choices on their children. There are a lot of dreams ... All of them cannot be fulfilled. There is nothing to do but study."
Sushma Verma, 13, Lucknow, India

Thirteen-year-old Sushma Verma has already in her short life, outstripped the scholarly capabilities of most young children. Completing high school by age seven, she earned an undergraduate degree by the time she reached thirteen. She is modest about her accomplishments, giving due credit to her impoverished parents who never themselves had the opportunity to become educated in an academic setting.

She is not an only child. She has three younger siblings and they all live together with their parents in a single room apartment in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state. Tej Bahadur Verma, Sushma's father, earns a daily wage of just under $3.50 working on a construction site work. The family, with the parents' eye on the future of their children, does own a rudimentary desk and a second-hand computer.

AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh     Sushma Verma, 13, does her homework as she sits on a staircase in Lucknow, India

Sushma is not a one-off wonder. Her older brother graduated high school at nine and five years later, in 2007 became one of India's youngest computer science graduates. Clearly Tej Bahadur Verma and his wife feel that their children are gifts to be cherished and their futures requiring sacrifices from them outside the ordinary. Because quite simply, their children are gifted and as such outside the ordinary, themselves.

Sushma aspired to practising medicine. She cannot, however, take the qualifying test for medical school entry until she reaches age 18. "So I opted for the MSc and then I will do a doctorate" she said, matter-of-factly. She begins studies next week at Lucknow's B.R. Ambedkar Central University. Her father has ferried her about on his bicycle to enable her to meet her teachers before the first semester begins.


AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh    Tej Bahadur Verma, 50, takes his daughter Sushma Verma home from her school in Lucknow, India, Monday, Sept. 16, 2013. 

In India, if impoverished families think of education opportunities for their offspring it is generally for male children. Girls are kept in the home, taught housewifely duties with an eye to amassing a dowry that will procure for them a good marriage. A cultural tradition that, though now considered unlawful, remains in practise like so much of India's cultural heritage practises unreflective of the new India.

To enable Sushma to attend university her father sold 930 square metres of land he owned in a village in Uttar Pradesh for the equivalent of $410 so he could pay for some of her school fees. The balance comes from a charity which granted her $13,000. "The girl is an inspiration for students from elite backgrounds", lauded Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh International, who is also helping with her tuition costs.

She will begin her studies in microbiology to obtain a Master's degree. And enable her to go on to study medicine. Fulfilling her parents' recognition of her exceptional intelligence and learning capability. Sushma's parents aspire to guide their children into India's middle class that they may know a better life, and usher their own children into a life of meaningful contributions to their society.

Sushma's story represents a needed antidote to the grisly, horrible stories of female abuse in a male-oriented society of traditional Hinduism where there is no such thing as women's rights and the plight of women and girl-children through a sense of male entitlements is truly deplorable. Ranging from arranged child marriages to the abandonment of widows, to violence, rape and murder.