Mamta Kalia

that she kept with great care with her
wedding outfits.
Ma was crying as loudly as ever.
Bhabhi opened her tin box, took out
the anklet and put it in Ma’s hand.
‘Sell it and get Lallaji admitted.’ All
the women were overwhelmed by her
affectionate gesture. I embraced bhabhi
and cried. At that moment, I missed
my brother deeply. The memory of that
day still continues to empower me.
Pitaji had tried very hard to dissuade
bhabhi. ‘No, Bahu... don’t sell it. I will
arrange somehow to send him to school.
Don’t you worry... You have just one
ornament... How can we sell that too?
...Go on, keep it.’
But bhabhi wouldn’t listen to him
and insisted on putting it in Ma’s hand.
Vaidya Satyanarayana Sharma used
to pawn and buy gold and silver
ornaments and act as a moneylender
apart from his regular job as the village
priest. Ma pawned the anklet with him
and thus was I admitted to class six.
Ram Singh and Sukkhan Singh were
in a different section. My roll number
was right at the end, and therefore I
sat in the last row. Shravankumar Sharma
sat in the next seat. Although we had
been studying together since class one,
now we became really close because
of our sitting together. Shravankumar
was handsome and very attractive.
Delicate like a girl. Caste never came
between us. This was a unique experience
for me. Ram Singh and Sukkhan Singh
were also my classmates, but Sukkhan
Singh never came to my house. I would
often go to his house. We sat together,
studied together. Later on we also
developed relationships at the family
level. Today his older son Rajneesh treats
me and my wife with a great deal of
respect.
Perhaps Sukkhan Singh was a little
remote, unlike Shravankumar. Then we
became friends with a third person. His
name was Chandrapal Varma and he came
from village Mandla. He was a Gujjar
by caste. He used to bother Shravankumar
a lot. Sometimes he would pinch his
cheeks and sometimes he would push
him. Sometimes he would hide his books.
These were daily occurrences.
One day, as we were coming out of
the classroom, he gripped Shravankumar
tightly and bit him on his cheek. The
whole class saw him do it but no one
said a word. Everyone was laughing
loudly. Shravankumar began to cry.
Chandrapal Varma was also laughing.
I don’t know what happened to me at
that moment but I grabbed Chandrapal’s
neck and pushed him down even though
he was twice my height and weight.
Chandrapal kept squirming to free his
neck but I did not let go of him. Chandrapal
did not get angry with me but kept
laughing. Later, he also begged
forgiveness from Shravankumar.
The three of us had become good
friends after this incident. Our friendship
was so deep that we felt incomplete
without each other. After school,
Shravankumar and I did not return via
the main road. We walked home through
the fields and the footpaths. This became
a regular routine of ours. The effect
April-June 2010 :: 17