In Marsavalli village in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar district, an 86-year-old woman recently sat on a wooden bench in a classroom, holding a pencil with careful attention, as she attempted a literacy test under the ULLAS Nav Bharat Saaksharta Karyakram.
Her name is Anusuya Bai Wadekar, and her presence in that room carried the weight of an unfinished beginning that dates back nearly a century.
She was born in a time when schooling for girls in rural India was often treated as unnecessary.
Books and classrooms existed at a distance from her childhood. Life moved swiftly into labour, household duties, and responsibilities that rarely paused to ask whether she could read a signboard or write her name.
Years passed in that pattern. The world around her filled itself with written language, while she continued to navigate it through memory, routine, and help from others.
The turn in her story did not arrive through any formal institution at first. It came from within her family. Her grandson began teaching her the alphabet at home, one letter at a time, repeating sounds and tracing shapes on paper. Those small sessions slowly became part of her everyday life.
What followed was not a structured classroom experience in the usual sense, but a consistent continuation of learning supported by local volunteers involved in adult education efforts in her village. They noticed her interest and stayed with her progress, helping her move from recognising letters to forming simple words and sentences.
When she finally appeared for the literacy test, it was not treated as an extraordinary event in the official sense, but in the village, it felt different. People who knew her story saw something unusual in the sight of someone at 86 years of age still sitting for an examination.
Her effort also stood against a wider backdrop, with 3,742 individuals identified as illiterate under the same literacy drive in the region, each working through their own journey towards reading and writing.
The test itself was simple on paper, but its meaning was layered. It marked a point where age stopped being a boundary for learning. It also reflected how programmes like ULLAS are reaching people who were left outside formal education long ago.
For Anusuya Bai, the pencil in her hand was not a symbol of achievement or struggle. It was simply part of a process that had begun late, moved slowly, and still found room to continue.
Video courtesy – Youtube @India Today
