Her mother, like many, wanted her to see her as a doctor, donning the proud white coat.
Her father wanted her to continue his legacy in Kathak, and become a great artiste someday.
Little did they know that their hopes would be dashed — irreparably, inconsolably! Sixteen-year-old Ekisha Raghav Shah took her life on Tuesday evening by hanging herself.
She was a Class IX student of Ahlcon Public School in Mayur Vihar, and in the words of her parents she was facing tremendous “mental agony” and sexual harassment at the hands of the teachers.
According to the parents, she was told by a teacher: “However hard you may study, I will still fail you." And that’s what they did.
“My daughter was a bright student and always wanted to become a doctor — she wanted to save the lives of others. She was very talented and had been learning classical dance since the age of three,” said Raghav Shah, the girl’s father, himself a classical dance teacher, and a disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj.
The mother — devastated — felt the girl could have been saved had the principal paid heed to the complaints made by the family. She said, “I tried my best to save her, and always motivated her and asked her to not think about the incidents. Had the principal rightly analysed the extreme pressure and mental trauma which she had been forced to go through in the past few days, she could have been saved," keep repeating Deepmala Nutan, the girl’s mother.
She is now waiting for justice for her daughter — her only reason to see through the next day. “I know my daughter will not come, back but I am going to fight for the ‘wrong things’ done to several other small innocent school-going girls."
No arrests have been made by the police so far, but an FIR has been lodged against the two teachers and the school principal.