Bihar Woman's Letter to Her Friend Now Part of Class 6 Malayalam Text

Never had 22-year-old Dharaksha Parveen, a migrant woman from Bihar's Darbhanga district, dreamt that one day a brief memoir she wrote would be made into a lesson and that too in Kerala General Education Department's Class VI Malayalam textbook.

- ANU KURUVILLA @Kochi

Never had 22-year-old Dharaksha Parveen, a migrant woman from Bihar's Darbhanga district, dreamt that one day a brief memoir she wrote would be made into a lesson and that too in Kerala General Education Department's Class VI Malayalam textbook. But that has happened! In the 2025-26 academic year, Class VI students throughout the state will study her life's journey from Bihar as a 10-year-old to a Malayalam teacher in the school where she mastered the language.

Speaking to TNIE, Dharaksha, who arrived in Kerala 12 years ago in 2013, says, "My father came before us. For him, Kerala has been home for the past 25 years. We now live at Muppathadam Thandirikkal Colony in a rented house."

According to her, the events that led to her writing getting selected for the Malayalam textbook happened after a small piece of news appeared in a vernacular daily in 2023.