It was somewhere close to midnight. As I drove down the dark road, I saw her.

Not just her, but under each streetlight along the pavement, other children like her sat, staring with absolute concentration at study books on their laps.

I watched the little girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, and on her face lit by the weak rays of the overhead street light, was a look of single-minded intentness and deep concentration.

She was not bothered by the sound of my car or other traffic on the road, nor did the honking and beeping that broke the silence of the night perturb her in the least. Her eyes were focused on her book, and there was no doubt her mind was on the subject matter therein.

She sat in a public place, bearing the brunt of public stares, some curious, some inquiring, some inquisitive, some prying and some plain snoopy, but for her, those eyes did not disturb, because hers were on her studies!

And as I watched this little girl, my mind went to this country of mine:

A country where political leaders who have never studied or have never understood the need for intellectual thought are placed in charge of education.

A country where huge talks are given about gender equality even as the men, firmly under the guise of love jihad and protectiveness, firmly push their girls away from higher studies and into their kitchens.

We forget the sacrifices of such children when we have exam centres where cheating is done under the very noses of the bribed teachers.

We forget such children when we change history and facts, not realising that they are putting in all their time and intent to be fed with knowledge and truth, not false facts made up in a political party's fake laboratory.

We forget that that little girl studying under a streetlight may be laughed at if she goes abroad to study and writes weird fictitious stories about our ancient spaceships, rockets, and legendary internet, which are printed in the same textbook she stares at under the streetlight.

Tomorrow, that little girl will find herself horribly ill-equipped to handle a job because some education ministry decided not to educate but to feed propaganda material to the children of our country.

The ills that plague this country are legion, but if we could feed the next generation with truth and facts, if we could throw out politicians behind the recent exam paper leakage scams, then we would do some justice to the little girl and millions of other children who study under streetlights or dim lamps in their homes!

The little girl closed her book and looked dreamily into the distance, even as tears rolled down my cheeks as I wept for her and all the children of our country..!