
Kynja Babha is a five-year-old girl in the faraway village of Khrang in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya. She is the daughter of a broom cultivator, from a below poverty line (BPL) family. Her father has a small farm down the slopes on the edge of the village.
Kynja has three sisters and one brother – she is the third child. She studies in the nursery class at the anganwadi centre in Khrang, implemented under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme of the government of India. The 15-year-old anganwadi is run by a single teacher, Teresa Shabong, for the last seven years.
Attired in a torn frock and oversized gum-boots, Kynja spends a day at the anganwadi centre.















Editor's note
Abhishek Saha did this photo story for PARI when he was a student at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai (2013-14). He was studying to be a print journalist, but was always passionate about photography. As a part of his journalism project, he did his field reporting from Khrang, a remote mountain village in Meghalaya. Abhishek was keen to know how institutions like anganwadis function in remote areas. “I spent that entire day making images of how an ordinary day unfolded at the anganwadi centre. The photo-essay on little Kynja was developed from those photographs,” he shared. He is based in Guwahati, where he works as Principal Correspondent, North-East , for ‘The Indian Express’.
This photo story was originally published on the PARI website on June 13, 2014.