Indian village girls

Typically in Asian cultures, the birth of a girl is considered an unfortunate responsibility because of the dowry system that puts a financial burden on the parents. For this reason, daughters were never as celebrated as sons. But in one village in India, the residents honor the birth of a daughter with a unique ritual of planting one hundred and eleven fruit trees. Through this tradition, every time a girl is born, the people of Piplantri, Rajasthan, combat the historical prejudice against daughters and beautify their homeland at the same time. The noble custom has endured for well over a decade.

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S hyam Sunder Paliwal knows his way through the trees. Pushing through low branches, he reaches a shady copse where a profusion of different varieties grow. Every evening, he comes here on his motorbike to see one tree in particular, a burflower — kadam in Hindi — that symbolises sublime love. In the silence of the copse, he wraps both arms tightly around the slender trunk and rests his head against it, eyes closed. He went on to channel his grief into a mission.

Despite universal primary school enrolment in India, many adolescent girls drop out of school after completing eight years of compulsory schooling. What explains the appearance of a gender gap in schooling as children enter adolescence? Some of the existing explanations focus on access to school infrastructure, the burden of housework and returns to education for girls.