This is Ragini’s story. She lives with her family in Guriha, a small village in Bhind district, Madhya Pradesh. I met Ragini during an awareness camp at the village government school. At that time, Ragini and her friend Nidhi were standing in the school courtyard, putting out millet for a squirrel. I went up to them and asked with great curiosity, “Who is this millet for?” As we talked, we became friends.

Ragini and her friend Nidhi are both students in class eight. Ragini held my hand and took me to her classroom. She said that their mathematics teacher would not come that day because he had been transferred. There were very few children in the classroom, and the atmosphere felt rather empty.

Ragini opened her bag and took something out. Then she held my hand and took me near the window. Outside the window, something like a pond was visible. There was only a window between Ragini’s desk and that pond. She showed me fish in the pond, took dough balls from her bag and began throwing them in. I asked in surprise, “What are you doing?” Ragini laughed and said, “These are for the fish.”

During our conversation, I learnt that it was not a pond but her father’s paddy field, which was now submerged in water. A few days earlier, water from Tighra Dam, built 50 km from the village, had been released because of heavy rain, turning the entire field into a pond. Ragini said sadly, “My father had taken it on sharecropping. The crop was going to be harvested in a few days, but the field was submerged before that.”

Ragini’s father, Sikandar, farms on a sharecropping basis. After the field was submerged, his financial condition became very poor. I met Ragini’s father, and he said that he had suffered a loss of ₹3 lakh. His greatest sorrow was that his two older daughters, who went to study in class ten at the government school in Malanpur, might now be unable to continue their studies. The submerged crop, debt and household expenses had brought him to the edge, making it difficult to arrange money for tuition.

Ragini dreams of becoming a doctor, but clouds of crisis now hang over that dream too. She knows that if her father cannot repay the debt, their tractor will also be taken away. Apart from this, arranging tuition fees for all the siblings will become very difficult. There was a glimpse of unconquerable courage and hope in Ragini’s eyes, but the circumstances had slightly dimmed her smile.

This was not only Ragini’s story. There were many such stories across the village, showing that many people had been affected by the dam water. Many village families had lost their crops and livelihoods, and their children were also moving away from their dreams of education.

Ragini’s dough balls were for the fish, but perhaps her dreams were also in those balls, now floating in the waters of uncertainty.