Strength to Say No (3 page)

During the day I help my father roll cigarettes so that he can earn more money. I take his place when he has cramps or when his back hurts too much. I make the same movements he does, but I don't have his endurance. I get tired very quickly after rolling a few hundred bidis.

My big sister Josna found work in a brick factory. The conditions there are very hard. She sleeps there, and when she comes home she tells us that she has trouble breathing. She inhales toxic fumes all day and also complains of back pains, but she would not quit the job for anything in the world. Without her wages we wouldn't be able to live.

One morning Ma asks me to go to the fields of the Mahatos, a rich family of landowners in Bengal. It's about an hour away
on foot. I go cross-country, and I'm afraid of coming across snakes. I'm terrified of reptiles, and I know that their bites can be fatal. Several villagers have already been bitten by cobras.

I arrive at the rice paddy at around seven o'clock. The heat is still bearable. I go to meet the owner, and he confirms that he needs workers, especially at this time of the year when it's very hot during the day. I have to pull up the tall grass that is choking out the rice plants. I say to myself that if my parents had not had so many children they would be able to provide for themselves without having to beg from the neighbours. I have the feeling that I'm one of those weeds. At the end of the day I'm exhausted, my back and legs and hands ache and my face is sunburned. The owner congratulates me on my zeal and presents me with a sack of muri (puffed rice) and fifty rupees in coins. He asks me to come back the next morning at the same time because seeds have to be planted.

I return home accompanied by other children from the neigh bouring villages. I can barely carry the sack on my shoulders. It's five o'clock, and I would quite like to go to bed, but I still have to help Ma remove the chaff from the rice grains before cooking them.

The work in the rice paddies is exhausting, but you have to take advantage of it because once the rainy season starts there will be no further work. The owner now pays us a hundred rupees per day. That's double the amount he paid before and as much as all the money that was brought home by everybody's wages. In the evening I carry back the sack of rice clasped to my chest, one hand on top and the other under the packet for fear that it will tear. I cry all the way home. I think that it's the tiredness after so much effort. My mother cooks the rice in a big
casserole. I am very hungry and feel dizzy. There are five of us around the dish, and there won't be enough for everyone. I eat sparingly and then retire discreetly. Later in the evening I take Baba's basket and roll some cigarettes. After making hundreds of them I collapse on a straw mattress near the door, fully clothed. I wake up in the middle of the night, freezing cold in the low night temperatures.

Baba is patching the roof so that it won't leak during the monsoon. In the evening when I get home from the rice paddy he asks me if I want to go back to school. I reply that I don't. If I am in the classroom that means that I can't earn money any more in the fields nor roll extra bidis when my father has finished his ten hours of daily work. The maths are simple. It is not profitable to go to school.

Several people came to the village during the day and asked all the families if their children were working, either with them or for an employer. They convinced my father that I ought to go to school. It's obligatory for someone of my age.

‘I don't want to go there, and I won't go!'

‘Rekha, if you go to school you won't be obliged to go to plant rice shoots for the rest of your life. Look at me! I'm worn out by all these years of labour. I can't sit down any more. I've been inhaling tobacco for such a long time that I have trouble breathing, and my sight is failing.'

‘I am going to help you. Josna is away, but I can take your place rolling cigarettes. I know how to do it now. Look, you see that I can easily do five hundred of them. The two of us will make more than a thousand cigarettes a day …'

‘I don't want to put your future in danger. If you are educated, if you know how to read and write, you will be even more useful to us.'

‘You think that's better? Because of the dowry?'

My father is embarrassed by my reply. He looks away and says, ‘Yes. Your mother and I hope to pay less if you have some schooling …'

‘I don't intend to get married.'

‘But you'll have to. When you're ten or so we'll find you the best possible husband.'

I must be around seven or eight years old. I can hardly imagine that in less than two years I will be the wife of some man.

‘If I go to school it's not to reduce my dowry but to study and to become someone important, someone who earns a good living.'

They came early in the morning. They went from family to family to meet the children one at a time. They asked me what work I was doing and if I was already going to school. I answered that I was happy as I was and that I didn't need to go to school. The people from NCLP were visibly ready for this kind of talk. They told me that my parents were going to be com pen sated if I was sent to school. There was a Bengali government programme for this, and the budget had been approved by the executive in New Delhi. From the day that I started going to school regularly my life changed completely.

Saraswati, Budhimuni, Sunita, Afsana – my best friends – and I are in the same school, which is situated a few hundred
metres from our houses near the temple of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge. Our teacher, Atul, is very welcoming. He con gratulates us at length for having come and then shows us around the place. Our classroom is on the first floor of a building annexed to the main school. We are a little older, and the teachers are afraid that we won't fit in with the other pupils; besides, our programme is accelerated, the idea being that we will catch up on the basic material in three years, while the other pupils have to study for five years.

We then meet Arjun, our headmaster, who will also be our teacher of mathematics and English. He, too, thanks us for coming and wishes us much success in our new surroundings. He presents each of us with a book, a notebook, a pen, a slate and some pieces of chalk.

The room is big and has two worn-looking blackboards facing one another across the room. There are two big windows covered by grilles, a chair for the teacher and a big rattan mat for the pupils. The class is divided into two. While one half is studying Bengali, the other half is turned towards the second black board and learns history or geography. It's very disconcerting because there is no separation, and at times I can't really tell who is speaking and who is teaching what. So I decide to take my place in the front row.

I feel that Atul likes me. He is a good teacher. He is very gentle and never raises his voice. When a pupil doesn't understand a question or has trouble grasping an idea he rephrases his words, while sometimes slipping some clues to the answer into his question. He is a very skilful teacher and always insists
that we reply by ourselves, even if it means helping us sometimes in quite an obvious way.

The class always begins with the Indian national anthem, and then we launch into some Baul songs – Bengali religious folk songs. Atul compliments me on my voice and tells the other pupils to follow my example. I am flattered but always very shy and embarrassed when I am asked to sing in front of my classmates. After that we learn Bengali grammar and vocabulary. During these few hours we don't need to work in the rice paddies or anywhere else. Playtime is one of the privileged moments in the day. All that is asked of us is that we play – that we act like children and not adults. We also have classes concerning hygiene and the importance of education in our future lives. So I learn that we ought to wash our hands several times a day and that we should take a shower with soap and shampoo at least once a week.

This first year is by far the most enriching experience I have ever had up to now. I am hard working in class, and I find the lessons easy. What's more I very quickly become one of the best pupils in the class. I know how to count up to a thousand, and I know the alphabet by heart. I understand the importance of what Atul and Arjun are teaching us.

Back home I say that I love school. My mother ignores my enthusiasm and asks me to wash the dishes and tidy the house. I obey out of fear that she will get angry with me. Her glassy eyes seem to bulge from their sockets. It's time to go to see another doctor other than the one in the village – who, as my father says, only prescribes the medicines that he has and not the ones that she needs to get well. Baba is seated on a thick cushion and is mechanically rolling some bidis. He squirms
around in all directions to find a comfortable position for his back. I suggest that he go to lie down for a few minutes, and I take the basket and roll some bidis so that he can reach his daily quota.

I have the impression that the screaming is rending the sky and ripping open the moon. How many people are indoors? I don't know. I stopped counting after the fifth or sixth person. In the courtyard of the house the neighbours' children are terrified by my sister's cries. The women weep; the men worry in silence. Some of them think to make themselves useful by praying and invoking the gods. Others tie up their livestock for fear that they will be scared by these terrifying noises and run off into the fields.