Kochi: A small tiled house in Muppathadam, near Eloor in Ernakulam, has been receiving many visitors in recent days. People are coming to meet and congratulate Dharaksha Parveen, a young woman originally from Bihar, whose life story has now found its way into the school curriculum. Twelve years ago, Dharaksha moved from Bihar to Kerala. Now, a memoir in the form of a letter to a friend—where she recalls her childhood in Bihar and how her life changed after moving to Kerala—has been included in the new textbook for sixth standard students in Kerala. The memoir she wrote in Malayalam, Thozhilinte Ruchi, Bhashayudeyum (which translates to The Taste of Labour and Language), recalls how her impoverished family, with no resources or proper educational infrastructure in their native village in Darbhanga, rebuilt their lives after arriving in Kerala. It also highlights how the Kerala government’s special education programme Roshni, designed for the children of migrant labourers, helped her achieve her dream. “In Bihar, I studied up to the 3rd standard. The school had no benches, desks, …