Studying is a daunting task for almost every Indian kid. No, we aren’t afraid of the teachers. We are scared of the part where we’ve to come back home and tell our parents what we’ve learnt. And thanks to their insane expectations, it usually ends in an explosion of words or chappals. But one brave woman did the impossible. She studied with her mother!
According to the Hindustan Times, Mala Datta (56) and her daughter Shreya Mishra (28) received their doctoral degree on the same day after completing their PhD programmes together. Datta said,
“I had to take a break from work in 2012 when my younger daughter had her class 12 board exams. That was the time when I registered for PhD (in finance). I then took study leave from the ministry and worked seriously on my completing the PhD.”
Datta is an Indian Economic Service officer working with the defence ministry. But she has always wanted to do her PhD after completing her Master’s in economics from the Delhi School of Economics in 1985. And so she did. Her daughter Mishra, a consultant at the Work Bank, registered for her own PhD in psychology two years later. She said,
“After I registered for the PhD we realised that we can complete it together and make it the most remarkable moment for us. Though our subjects were totally different, I started seeking guidance from my mother and worked harder to complete it within three years.”
The mother and daughter submitted their theses on time and attended their oral exams last year. Datta said,
“It’s an absolutely wonderful experience for me because I got to learn a lot studying with the co-students of my daughter’s age. There were instances when my professor would call me ma’am. But I enjoyed it. The motivation was to get a PhD degree with my daughter on the convocation day.”
As the convocation was on November 19, a day after Mishra’s marriage, they weren’t able to attend it. But they managed to achieve their ultimate goal, which was collecting their degrees together. Mishra said,
“We finally realised our dream and collected our degrees together. Officials there said that we would have made news headlines if we had received the degrees on the day of the convocation. But it doesn’t matter because now my paternal grandparents and my husband are here to share this unique feat.”
Officials at the University of Delhi said that this was the first time that a mother-daughter duo had completed their doctoral programme together from the institution.
Your dream might not be as far fetched as completing an educational degree with your child or parent. But the story of Shreya and Mala shows that you can achieve whatever you want, whenever you want only if you have the will to act upon it.