The First Step…a lonely one

From the corner of my eye, I watched the village headman walk towards my cowshed. It seemed very unusual. He never comes to our cowshed, but today he did and it looked very ominous. Even at seven years, I was an intelligent kid and would pay keen attention to everything around.

I saw my father get up and welcome the headman. He laid out a cow skin and asked the headman to sit. I saw the headman many times; he is a fearful looking man. His bow shaped mustache would twitch ever time he talked. From a distance, I could only hear mutters and saw my father’s face glow and then frown. The headman took out some kind of a paper and was peering at it with great difficulty.

It was time for me to round up the cattle, so I trotted away with my brother in search of our cattle in the forest. When I came back, the headman was gone. My dad was still at his place talking to my mother. There was something in their eyes that bugged me, yet they would not tell me. After completing the chores, we finally sat for dinner, when my dad looked at me and shattered my small world. He cleared his throat and said. “Chimi,” mother and I decided to send you to school. I sat there numb, suddenly feeling very sick. I looked around for support and all my brothers and sisters looked at me as if I was a stranger. The food tasted bland and rubbery. I stared threateningly at my younger siblings.

That night, I groaned and rolled on the cow skin mat. I could not sleep and my mind kept leaving my body. I did not want to go to school. If I went to school, who will help my parents, who will play with my younger siblings. Life in the jungle was hard and filled with dangers. What, if a bear mauled my father, what if mother fell from a tree and a cow gored my sister. These thoughts came back in waves one after the other.

The next day, my father measured my frail body and my flat yeti feet. He then left for the town loaded with butter and cheese, probably to barter with clothes and shoes. I saw him limp slowly and disappear from the view. My mother, who usually did not like my garrulous pranks, looked at me in a different way on that day. She called me near her and put her hand on my head. She said, “chimi,” I know you are not happy with our decision to send you to school. But believe me, in years to come, you will have a life which none of your siblings can have. At school you will learn many things and someday, you will know why we send you out there. “No” I chided. This is my world and I belong here, I told my mother. But she would not say another word.

From that day, my younger siblings would make fun of me and call me a lopen. To them, it seems fun, only if they saw what I was going through my frail improvised body. I loved the wilderness, I loved my cows. To me the forest was my world and the trees are my playmates. How on earth can I leave them behind and go to a new place called school. What would I do there, what is the point of studying when I have my fun here?

My father limped back after four days. On his back, I saw a big pack and wondered what it contained. Mother gave him tea while we children squatted around him anticipating some sweets. After the tea, he pulled the bag towards him and opened it. He pulled a pack of cookies and asked me to distribute amongst ourselves. Wow…cookies with both its ends curled up like my dog’s tail was our favourite. It was just cookies and nothing more but cookies that we had whenever my dad went to the town.

Parents then asked us to play outside and leave them alone. We rushed out with cookies in the hand. As luck could have it, I slipped on a cow pooh and my much awaited cookie went flying. It landed exactly in a puddle freshly created by the family bull. Just as I was about to grab it, my dog rushed in and grabbed it Dang….what lucks. Just then, I espied my baby sister strolling around with a giant cookie in her tiny hand. So, I wandered around my tiny sister who was having difficulty in chewing the cookie with her toothless gum. Even before she knew what happened to her cookie, I took a great bite and mimicked a monkey to amuse her. She was too small to understand and even know what a cookie is and how it tasted. She just giggled at me and asked me to do it again. With pleasure, I did it again and again, till there was none. The little girl was amused at first and then realized that her cookie was gone.

At dinner time, father announced that the next day, father and I was heading to the school. The school was three days journey. Mother packed all the essential items including pots and plates. My father showed me all the stuffs that I would need in the school. One rubber shoes, which looked pitifully small, a black socks and a navy blue gho. Even before, he said a word; I told him that those are perfect fit on my elder brother. I pleaded to mother to send my “acho” to school and not me. I also demonstrated to her, how useful I can be around the shed by doing all the chores. She was silent too and I knew I was doomed.That night, my siblings gathered around me and looked grim. They did not realize that their monkey brother would be gone the next day. It was a fitful night and I once again groaned and moaned. I was scheming on how to get myself out of this mess and instead send my brother.

It was the longest night of my life. Some time, late into the night, my family rooster flapped his wings and made his first call. It was an ominous call for me. For when the day breaks, I will be leaving everything behind and moving to another land…another galaxy. My dreams of swinging on the trees, playing in the pond and running wild in the great grassland came to an end. All shattered by that idiotic village headman who came to my cowshed that fateful day. Just when it was time to leave, my mother came to me and handed me a small bag with a string attached at its mouth. She said, it contained soap and every day I should wash my face with it. She dug into her purse and took out four coins which she handed to me. I saw tears in her eyes. I was dressed up in the blue “gho” and the rubber shoes. The shoe pinched my mighty huge feet and the new under pant was a pain in my butt. I bid farewell to my siblings and promised them that I will be back during the winter vacation with a lot of cookies.

On the second day, we reached the peak of the mountain. I looked down and saw a thin spiral of smoke come out of my tiny shed far below. I felt a lump in my heart and I broke down. I heard my dad yell at me from above and I followed him like a sheep taken to be butchered.

The year was 1968 and I was eight or nine. The Government started schools in the districts but none came forward to join. So the district administrator summoned all the village headmen to his office and threatened them to send as many kids as possible to school. I was the first victim and there was no escape. On the third day, we finally reached the school.

It was mid may and school was in session already. I saw sleek and clean boys with well combed hair and very pretty girls walk past me. They looked at me as if they are looking at some weird creature that just emerged from the forest. My father nonchalantly led me around the u- shaped building and into some office. Inside the dark office, I gazed upon a very old man, who looked like my grandfather. His hair was white and so was his mustache. My father bowed to him and placed before him countless balls of cheese and butter. The fat old man cleared his throat and took off his reading glass and peered at me. He made us sit on the floor and offered us tea. He then asked me my name and asked me whether I knew any of the alphabets that hung by the chart above his massive head. I said no. I felt pissy and very sweaty. At last he let us go and asked us to come to his house for lunch. Just before I escaped from there, another man came in and told me to follow him. I looked at my dad, my eyes pleading to save me. He nudged me and in a flash I was dragged down the hallway to a room filled with handsome boys and pretty girls.

The school did not have any boarding facilities. So my dad attached me to the same old man from the office. Only later, I came to know that everyone called him a “white buffalo” from his back. (Buffalos are supposed to be very short tempered and dangerous animals) My father left a day after staying with me and it was my saddest day. Soon after my father left, the white buffalo called me and asked me whether I could cook. Since then, I was his cook and cooked for him for the next five years till his retirement at the age of seventy nine.

My first day in the school was a disaster. I was handed a slate board and a small stone pencil to write. The foolish me, did not know that slate would break if you sat on them because, I neither heard nor saw a slate my entire life. When the class teacher entered the room, I was peeing in my pants with a broken slate. When he asked the other students to copy what he wrote on the black board, I was holding both my ears and doing up and down in the corner and it went on for the entire period. (The entire period was half day in those days). Luckily for me, white buffalo came around and asked me to go and cook his lunch. That night, I peed in my bed.