Hem Borker performed field-based research in madrasa "Jamiatul Mominat," a residential girls' madrasa in Delhi, exploring the everyday lives of young girls studying in the madrasa. She interacted with a number of students and teachers in this madrasa. But there were few with whom she developed a bond during her journey from being a stranger and unknown researcher to becoming a friend. Rukaiya was among these few. This article is based on Rukaiya's ethnographic portrait, a combination of Borker's interaction with one of the teachers, a self-portrait written by Rukaiya as a part of the English-speaking classes Borker conducted in the madrasa, and participant observation in the madrasa. By focusing on the immediacy of lived experience and situating it within broader temporal, spatial and scholarly frames, the portrait offers a unique form of ethnographic writing to communicate social change (Mills & Borker, n.d.). The insights embedded in this portrait not only offer a means to reflect, analyse and tell lives as they unfold, but also serve as a reflexive illustration of the Borker's research (Borker, 2018). The second part of the article argues that an attention to the educational journeys of girls from home to madrasa and beyond problematises the ways in which girls' lives in madrasas are bracketed into binaries such as women's empowerment and domestic femininity.