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Rajni Kumar, nee Nancie Joyce Margaret Jones, was born in 1923 in England. At the age of twenty-three, she married a fellow student, Yudhister Kumar, moved to India and took up an Indian name. In 1950, she joined a local school as its principal and worked there till 1955, when she decided to start a kindergarten in the living room of her house in Delhi’s East Patel Nagar. She chose to name it Springdales, symbolic of the freshness of spring and inspired by the progressiveness of the Bedales School in the UK. India had just attained independence, and Springdales burst upon the educational scenario with vibrancy, dovetailing much of the ethos and culture of the new India into its education programmes and philosophy. The institution has over the years grown to four schools in India, one in Dubai, has over 6,000 students on its rolls, and has gained an enviable reputation for the education it imparts. Against the Wind is the inspiring memoir of Rajni Kumar’s trailblazing life and work in a field that is yet to get its due in India.