Mamta Kalia

grandson, Surendra, visited my house
in connection with some interview. He
had obtained my address in the village.
He stayed the night with us. My wife
fed him a very nice meal, and while
eating, he said, ‘Bhabhiji, you make such
delicious food. No one in our family
can cook so well.’ His compliment made
my wife happy, but I was deeply disturbed
for quite some time. The incidents of
childhood began knocking at my
memory’s door again.
Surendra had not even been born
then. His elder aunt, that is, Sukhdev
Singh Tyagi’s daughter, was getting
married. My mother used to clean their
place. Starting ten to twelve days before
the wedding, my parents had been doing
all sorts of work at Sukhdev Singh Tyagi’s
home. A daughter’s wedding meant that
the prestige of the whole village was
at stake. Everything had to be perfect.
My father had gone from village to village
to collect charpais for the guests.
The barat was eating. My mother
was sitting outside the door with her
basket. I and my younger sister Maya
sat close to my mother in the hope
that we too would get a share of the
sweets and the gourmet dishes that we
could smell cooking inside.
When all the people had left after
the feast, my mother said to Sukhdev
Singh Tyagi as he was crossing the
courtyard to come to the front door:
‘Chowdhriji, all of your guests have eaten
and gone ...Please put something on the
pattal for my children. They too have
waited for this day.’
Sukhdev Singh pointed at the basket
14 :: April-June 2010
full of dirty pattals and said, ‘You are
taking a basketful of joothan. And on
top of that you want food for your
children. Don’t forget your place, Chuhri.
Pick up your basket and get going.’
Those words of Sukhdev Singh Tyagi
penetrated my breast like a knife. They
continue to singe me to this day.
That night the Mother Goddess Durga
entered my mother’s eyes. It was the
first time I saw my mother get so angry.
She emptied the basket right there. She
said to Sukhdev Singh, ‘Pick it up and
put it inside your house. Feed it to the
baratis tomorrow morning.’ She gathered
me and my sister and left like an arrow.
Sukhdev Singh had pounced on her to
hit her, but my mother had confronted
him like a lioness. Without being afraid.
After that day Ma never went back
to his door. And after this incident she
had also stopped taking their joothan.
The same Sukhdev Singh had come
to my house one day. My wife had
welcomed him with open arms, treating
him with the respect due to a village
elder. He had eaten at our house. But
after he left, my nephew Sanjaya Khairwal,
who is studying for his B.Sc. degree,
said to me, ‘Chachaji, he ate only at
your own house; at our place, he did
not even drink water.’
My elder bother Sukhbir was a year
round servant at Suchet Taga’s. I was
in fifth class then. He would have been
around twenty-five or twenty-six years
of age. He was very dark complexioned,
tall and muscular. One day a wild boar
came inside the village. He had injured
a lot of people with his sharp horns.