A few years back I attended a sports day wherein I found a little girl dressed as 'Begum Rokeya' (as we find her attire in text book). I asked the child whether she knew anything about the noble lady she imitated. She said 'no'. I felt like writing something for letting the new generation know about the great woman.

Begum Rokeya was the first woman who showed the light of education for Bengali Muslim women. She was born in 1880 at Pairabondh village of Rangpur. Her upbringing was in a family where she had to veil herself from the age of five.

She was married to a highly educated liberal hearted youth of Bhagalpur. She had a great thirst for knowledge and noticing her eagerness, her husband encouraged her to pursue education. But her husband Shakhawat Hossain breathed his last only nine years after the marriage. Childless Rokeya felt the sorrows and deprivation of women from her own experience. And she realised that sorrows and bereavement of folk women would not come to an end without education. She came forward to promote women's condition by setting up a Pathshala for the girls at Bhagalpur in Bihar. She expired on December 8, 1932.

Once in a meeting arranged for women she commented, "You would perhaps be surprised to know that I have been crying for women''s education for the last 22 years. Women are so unfortunate that there is nobody to think or cry for them."