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Fifteen-year-old Meena Masrangi wears a broad smile on her face when we meet her at Fern Meadows in Hennur, where her parents work as domestic help, on Tuesday. After all, the fruits of her hard work have paid off—scoring an overall of 85 per cent in the SSLC examinations, and 90 per cent in Kannada, a language which was alien to her till a few years ago.
 Waking up every morning at 4 am, she spent two years studying Kannada and Maths (in which she scored 82), the two subjects she was weak in. "Initially, since I found Kannada difficult, I used to mug the questions and answers. Then I found that while taking exams, I wasn’t able to understand the questions and hence wouldn’t be able to write the correct answers," she says.
That’s when her teacher at Gnana Bhaskara Public School advised Meena to understand the language, which would help her score higher. "I started studying sentence by sentence. If I didn’t understand a line, I would go back to my teacher," she says. But, Meena, who tends to be shy, says that she’s more at ease when it comes to reading and writing the language and needs to brush up her conversational skills.
 Five years ago, as a 10-year-old, Meena came to the city with her parents, without knowing English or Kannada. The first disappointment came when she was denied admission to New Baldwin School, who weren’t certain that she would be able to match her peers. They gave her two months to brush up her skills after which she would have to take a second test.
"My first language was Hindi. I spent those two months working day and night," says Meena, whose parents work as house helps at former bureaucrats Hari and Uma Pillai’s residence. "Ma’am and Sir, [referring to the Pillais] helped me out, which is how I was able to get through then and now," she says. But soon after she cleared her entrance test, she realised a bigger hurdle in front of her. "I couldn’t understand what was going on in class. I was bored.
 
Even though my classmates tried speaking with me, I just couldn’t because of the language barrier," she says.
But keeping in mind the bigger picture—her aim to become a teacher, Meena pushed herself to improve her English, which would help her in other subjects as well. "Ma’am used to get me books to read. I began by reading fairytales and popular stories. After each story, I would write out answers. This really helped me," she says.
 In class nine, when she joined Gnana Bhaskara Public School because her parents couldn’t afford the fees at New Baldwin School, Meena didn’t find it a tough transition. Her parents Tulsi and Temraj always knew that their daughter was "hardworking".
To help her out, Tusli says that for a year she asked her daughter to concentrate on her studies rather than help out with domestic chores. "She used to help out with cooking dinner for us. But I told her that I would manage and she should utilise the time studying instead," Tulsi says.
 Meena, who is awaiting an admission notification from St Charles College in Lingarajapuram, was confused whether to take up Science or Commerce. "It was after an aptitude test that Sir gave me that I made up my mind to take Commerce," she says. After her studies, Meena is looking forward to pursuing a career in the education field.
"There is no proper education system back in Nepal. All of us have to move out for better facilities. At least, I hope that by my becoming a teacher, I can make a difference in a small way," she says.