“I’m not going to school. Aaj se school jaana band (no school for me, starting today)” – these were the words spoken by 14-year-old Gomti, in response to her mother coaxing her about why she had been missing out on school so often lately.

Something about her tone and finality of the statement urged her mother to probe deeper and not cease the interrogation. And that’s when Gomti broke – shoving a piece of paper into her mother’s hand annoyingly, she said: “Here you go. Now you know why. Now stop asking me questions.”

The offending paper, it turned out, was a “love letter”, handed to Gomti by Chandraprakash aka Chandu, a young boy in her neighbourhood who had been expressing a keen interest in her and vying for her affections.

But this is no sweet love story of a pehla pehla pyaar. For Gomti, it meant a few weeks of being followed around and stalked as she set off for Paramhans Inter-College, where she’s a student of Class IX – the threat of real, physical harm always looming, always imminent, every single day. What if today Chandu suddenly lost it?

Once it had all been poured into real words on a piece of paper – bhagvaan ladkiyon ko pyaar karne ke liye hi banata hai, na ki ladaai karne ke liye (god creates women to be loved, not so that they can cause fights) – Gomti knew she was better off foregoing school altogether. What are a few geography lessons worth after all, when your very life could be at stake?

Gomti knows, like so many girls her age all over rural UP, how to read between the lines when a hot-blooded male pens lines like these – main toh sabhi savaal ka ek hi javaab maang raha hoon – haan ya na? Yadi tumhara koi aur dost hai to bata do, bas khatam karo (just answer me now, yes or no. If you have someone else you like, just tell me and let’s finish this).

Gomti is not alone. Throughout the vast expanse of the hinterland, where patriarchy rules and exerts itself in ugly ways day after day, the decision to stay indoors forever and minimise contact with the world outside of your house, is one that is taken by one too many young girls.

The danger that awaits a school and (if she makes it) college-going girl in rural Bundelkhand is one that finds its macro perspective in the recently released ASER report which, among its several dismal findings on the state of rural education, sheds light on the sheer disparity between the genders.

A gap that is wider, uglier, and more disturbing than ever before. It is a never-ending list of sorts: while 47.1 per cent boys in the 14-18 age group could do simple division (dividing a three-digit number by a single digit), at 39.5 per cent, girls fared worse.

While only 12 per cent boys had never used a mobile phone, 22 per cent of girls surveyed had never used one. And while the statistics on the enrolment gap have seen a positive rise overall thanks to the Right to Education Act, it presents a telling divide once children reach the age of 17-18 – it is pegged at 71.6 per cent for boys as opposed to 67.4 per cent for girls.

Opting out of the formal education system as girls grow up is common enough knowledge – not least because the general assumption is that she will be married off soon, so why bother? – but the links between this abysmal phenomenon and incidents of violence against women are among the lesser documented, lesser talked about socio-cultural facts of our country.

If it’s not coercion from a love-interest, it’s sheer sexual harassment at the hands of her peers, or worse, her teachers. Or it could just be an innocuous love letter.

The matter in the Khaptiha Kalaan village of district Banda in Bundelkhand has taken an interesting turn though – the kinds that are rare, heartening, and make us want to not give up entirely.

Gomti’s mother decided to not take all this drama lying down and escalated it to the level of a police complaint against the boy. According to Rajeev Kumar, the local thana head, a case has been booked against the offender under the POCSO act.

Gomti’s mother has become the subject of general ridicule and shock at the hands of “well-wishers” of course. It is why she also finds mention in the love letter itself – tumhari mummy ko yeh chinta nahi ki samaj mein meri beti ki izzat barkarar rahe… gaali galauj karti rehti hai (how come your mother isn’t bothered about your reputation in society? She walks around hurling abuse).

The usual practice of family members when a girl is in a situation like Gomti’s, is to try and do their best to shove it all under the carpet. And of course, to pause or stop the girl’s schooling with immediate effect.

But she is adamant. “Ab hamaari izzat udne do. Ab hum khud hi uda rahe hain (I don’t care about this social reputation),” she says, “We’re going to stand by the charges.”