Mamta Kalia

is in a foreign land.’ A pall fell on the
house. Bhabhi was ill. There was not
enough food for us all. We ate whatever
we could scramble together. No one
laughed; no one talked.
Bhabhi would sit wordlessly, her head
on her knees. All of us seemed to have
got locked in our shells.
I had passed class five. I had to
get admission in the sixth. The village
had ‘Tyagi Inter College, Barla,’ which
has now changed its name to ‘Barla Inter
College, Barla’. There was no question
of taking admission given the
circumstances the family found itself in.
How could one think of studies when
one didn’t even have food?
My heart would become heavy when
I saw my schoolmates passing by with
books in their hands. Janesar was my
elder brother. Both of us would leave
home early in the morning. We would
go around the fields, collecting wild grass
for our buffalo. A few days before his
death, Sukhbir had acquired a buffalo
in barter from Suchet Taga. We hoped
to make some money when she calved.
Both Janesar and I were constantly busy,
attending to the buffalo. I also had the
responsibility of grazing the pigs in the
afternoon. Pigs were a very important
part of our lives. In sickness or in health,
in life or in death, in wedding ceremonies,
pigs played an important role in all of
them. Even our religious ceremonies were
incomplete without the pigs. The pigs
rooting in the compound were not the
symbols of dirt to us but of prosperity
and so they are today. Yes, the educated
among us, who are still very minute
16 :: April-June 2010
in percentage, have separated themselves
from these conventions. It is not because
of a reformist perspective but because
of their inferiority complex that they
have done so. The educated ones suffer
more from this inferiority complex that
is caused by social pressures.
One day I was coming home after
grazing the pigs. On the way home I
met Sukkhan Singh who stopped me and
asked, ‘Why have you stopped coming
to school? Aren’t you going to study
further?’ I shook my head in refusal.
He kept talking a long time about the
new atmosphere of the school. Now it
had desks and chairs whereas before
we used to sit on mats. The teachers
also did not beat the students as much.
And there was a separate teacher for
each subject.
I returned home with a sad heart.
There was something bubbling inside me.
My inability to go to school had made
me hopeless. The majestic building of
the Inter College was constantly before
my eyes. As soon as I returned home,
I said to my mother, ‘Ma, I want to
go to schooL’ There were tears in my
eyes. Seeing my tears, my mother also
started to cry. When Ma cried, her
complaints and grudges would be
recounted in a loud voice that brought
forth all the neighbourhood women who
would surround her. The harder they
tried to console Ma, the harder Ma wept.
Bhabhi was crying too, sitting all by
herself My brother’s death had caused
a wedge between her and the rest of
the family. As something that could be
called jewellery, bhabhi had a silver anklet