Children of A Better God

by usmita, Bagchi

  ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘In that case, can I make a request? Could you meet the eighth standard in the morning tomorrow? I have spoken to Prachi, our eighth standard class teacher. There aren’t too many children in her class, so Raja’s arrival won’t be a problem. At the same time, it’s the end of the year. Prachi will have to find out from Raja what he has learnt in his previous school. But the problem is with our ability to understand his accent. Prachi can’t follow him easily. It’s not exactly a big deal but it takes up a lot of time before she gets it. It can be difficult for a teacher to devote so much time to one child. But if you’re there to help, it’s another matter. Can you come tomorrow, Anupurba? Please—just for a couple of hours? Just tomorrow.’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Mathur, and not just for a couple of hours. I’ll be with Prachi the whole day and come on Wednesday too if necessary. You’ll see, there’ll be no problems after a day or two. He will be fine.’

  Mrs Mathur looked at Anupurba and smiled, as though she had always known this was the answer she would get. ‘There’s something else I wanted to show you,’ she said.

  She extended the large yellow file that lay on her desk towards Anupurba. ‘Raja loves to draw. These are some of his drawings.’

  Anupurba was stunned by what she saw. Never in all her years as an art teacher had she seen such talent in a child—not here in Asha Jyoti or for that matter in the US. Could this be the work of a fifteen-year-old? How incredible!

  ‘These are unbelievably good!’

  ‘Thanks!’ This one was from Raja.

  His eyes were not on Anupurba but his ears were alert. He had been listening to every word said about his drawing. That surely meant that he had heard all that his aunt had previously been saying about him. Oh God!

  Malini was preparing to leave. ‘Thanks, Mrs Mathur,’ she said. ‘I’ll go now. Raja will start coming here tomorrow. Please take care for the first few days.’ The beautiful eyes showed so much apprehension.

  Before Mrs Mathur could say anything, Manish stood up. ‘Malini,’ he said, ‘I’d like to have a quick look at the Art Room and see the children’s drawings. Can you please wait here for a few minutes with Raja? . . . Do you mind?’ he asked, turning to Anupurba.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Please come.’

  They reached the Art Room and Anupurba was about to take the children’s drawings out of the cupboard when Manish stopped her. ‘I didn’t really want to see the drawings,’ he said, ‘but there is something I had to tell you.’

  ‘Please!’ she said, gesturing him to take a chair.

  ‘I know you didn’t like what Malini said. But please don’t mind. She’s so concerned about Raja that sometimes she forgets herself. Raja doesn’t have a mother. Malini has given him a mother’s love since he was a small child.’

  So Raja did not have a mother. Anupurba looked at Manish sympathetically.

  ‘No, it is not what you are thinking. Raja’s mother is alive. . . . Actually, we are divorced. Eileen’s American. We studied together at the university. She came to India for the first time after we were married. That was her first exposure to family life in India and she didn’t quite like what she saw. She felt we Indians interfere too much in the lives of others, including our own children. And husbands didn’t allow their wives any space.’

  Not entirely untrue. Anupurba was listening.

  ‘The problem grew worse after Raja was born. When we found that the child was slow in a few activities, we took him to many doctors. They all said the same thing—mild form of cerebral palsy. It may not be a major hindrance in life, but it would always be there in him, and it was incurable.’

  ‘From that day Eileen started feeling suffocated. She felt as though she had suddenly been made a prisoner and was being punished for some unknown crime. Her wings had been clipped. One day she asked me to send Raja to some institution, no matter what the cost. Money wasn’t our problem, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of entrusting Raja to someone else’s care. Eileen was exasperated with me. If parents could send children to boarding schools and parents to old-age homes, what was the problem in sending a child with cerebral palsy to an institution that would look after him well for the rest of his life? The arguments and the bitterness grew, and finally, she and I divorced. Eileen migrated to Australia. She has visited America several times since but never cared to inquire about Raja or look him up.’

  And then?

  ‘After a lot of thinking, I had a discussion with Malini and then I had Raja admitted to a school when he was a little older. But it was a school for normal children.’

  ‘A normal school? Why?’

  ‘That isn’t an easy question to answer. A father’s mind, you know. It isn’t always easy to confront the reality. I convinced myself that apart from a slight limp, Raja showed none of the symptoms of cerebral palsy. Why should I have made a fuss over something ao minor? To tell you the truth, I didn’t want people to know. No one knew, apart from Malini and Eileen—not even my closest friends. I thought what he needed was to see other kids, learn from them, even get competitive.’

  Anupurba was listening silently.

  ‘It’s true that Raja was a slow learner. He found his lessons difficult and had some trouble in learning how to write—that’s why he’s still in the eighth grade at sixteen. But I told myself, not all children are born brilliant. So what if his grades are low? Let him get through high school somehow. I tried to hide his problems from others, giving it out as attention deficit disorder. I realize now that this was a mistake. I should have known that Raja was not normal, though he looked normal. I should have sent him to a special school. He might have been different if he had been given therapy and special education and allowed to interact with others like him.’

  ‘Why, what happened?’

  ‘In the process of my trying to make him normal, he was hurt emotionally. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to get over it.’ His voice choked.

  Then, controlling his feelings, he continued, ‘You know what schools in America are like: adolescent children have boyfriends and girlfriends. With his mental condition, Raja could not have developed more than an ordinary friendship with any girl. But there was peer pressure and he kept trying. Finally, when he was in the eighth grade, he became close to Jenny, who was a year junior to him. Shortly afterwards, the eighth grade children organized a dance. Raja wasn’t keen to go—what could he have done at a dance with his lame leg? But Jenny persuaded him to go. She couldn’t go to the dance if she wasn’t escorted by an eighth grade student.’

  ‘Did Raja take Jenny to the dance?’

  ‘Yes. But once she was inside, she danced merrily with everyone else. Once, during the dance, Raja asked her to sit beside him. “Why?” Jenny asked. “Just because you can’t dance?” “You are my girlfriend.” Raja said to her. “Girlfriend? You must be out of your mind!” she told him.

  ‘Raja was badly hurt by this incident and went into a depression. He wouldn’t speak to anyone. Then I took him to a number of psychiatrists. They all told me the same thing: I had made a mistake in sending him to a normal school. Raja’s mental condition was so shattered then that the Principal of the school asked me to come over for a chat. I realized I could no longer hide the truth. But once the facts were known, who could guarantee that Raja wouldn’t have to face all kinds of taunts? I couldn’t stay on in the US and returned to India. Ten days ago I came to Bangalore. I have come to terms with reality. I am very hopeful that Raja can improve at Asha Jyoti.’

  ‘I’m sure, he will,’ Anupurba assured him. ‘I’ll look after him myself.’

  ‘Thank you so very much. I feel relieved that I have told you everything. Bye, Mrs Anupurba.’

  ‘Please, just call me Anupurba,’ was all she said in reply as they shook hands and he got up to go.

  Painting by Jhansi © Spastics Society of Karnataka

  Twelve

  Anupurba’s assurance was not misplaced. As February g
ave way to March and the pink and the yellow tabebuia bloomed in abundance, Raja settled down in his new school happily.

  He had made friends very quickly. Despite a broken home behind him, Raja was very affectionate by nature. Moreover, unlike the school in the US, no one at Asha Jyoti singled him out for not being ‘normal’. No one even thought that he had a disability. He was not even given a furtive second look. Having a disability was the normal thing here!

  There was another reason why he found easy acceptance—it was his amazing artistic talent. All that the boy needed was drawing material and the way he created magic with pencil and paper amazed everyone. On the very first day, he drew a sketch of Varun who had dozed off during the class. Varun’s mouth was gaping open with a little drool by the side. The other children had never seen such a life-like sketch before! They were in fits of laughter. Neither Prachi nor Anupurba were able to calm them down. Raja’s drawing had brought them so much of joy. Finally, one of the other children, unable to restrain herself, woke up Varun. Varun pretended to be angry for a brief moment when he saw the object of the collective amusement, but soon he too burst out laughing. It really was a marvellous drawing.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough!’ Prachi tried to bring everyone back to focus on their work at last, but muffled chuckles went on for a long time. Raja just blended into the place as if he had always been a part of this school, these people.

  The only occasional stumbling block was his accent and sometimes his choice of words.

  ‘These guys are wonderful!’ Raja told Anupurba later that day. ‘Never seen anybody like them! But why can’t anyone understand me? Should I do something differently?’

  Before Anupurba could say anything Shweta walked up to them. Since she was in Anupurba’s art class, she felt comfortable with her. Pushing her long curly hair back, she said, as though trying to probe a secret, ‘Anupurba Aunty, we were asking Raja about his school in America and he said “I love the dance, I love the dance”. What is he saying?’

  Anupurba was startled. Dance! Could Raja be telling his new friends about the sordid saga of his school dance? Was the story of his humiliation surfacing all over again? Should she know?

  ‘What was it, Raja, what were you telling Shweta?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Anu, they asked me what I liked best in my school in the US and I told them. But they don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, what was it you liked the most?’

  ‘We had a big pond near the school. There were little stones at the bottom and there were a lot of ducks. I used to sit on a bench beside the pool and I loved the ducks. They built their nest in spring and hatched little ducklings this time of the year there . . .’

  Now Anupurba could understand what had happened. Raja had been talking about ‘ducks’ in his slightly nasal American accent and the children had understood him to be saying ‘dance’.

  Smiling, she explained to Shweta in her teacher voice ‘Raja was talking about “ducks”, not “dance”. You can see lots of them in the US; they are beautiful, with their brown, green and yellow colours. There was a pond in Raja’s old school, where ducks built their nests. They laid their eggs in the bushes near the banks. Little chicks came out of the eggs. This was what Raja was trying to tell you.’

  She turned to Raja. ‘Raja, you should speak very slowly to your friends so that they can follow you.’

  He nodded.

  By the end of the day, she found that the children were no longer struggling to communicate with Raja, though they had to listen to him intently. Good. Her work was done. They had broken the ice. She probably needn’t come and sit in Prachi’s class any longer. As she was leaving, she remembered something. ‘Come to my art class tomorrow, Raja. We must show your drawings at the exhibition.’

  ‘Art class? I don’t know anything about it,’ he said. ‘Shweta will bring you there. She’s in the same class.’ ‘That’s great, thank you so much.’

  ~

  The Art Exhibition was barely five weeks away. Shobha had already fixed the dates in consultation with Mrs Mathur—April 15,16 and 17. The Arts Council of Karnataka had granted them permission to exhibit their paintings in the large hall without a fee. Everything depended on Anupurba now.

  It was a tremendous responsibility. They were all banking on her. Could she pull it off?

  On Thursday Raja turned up at the art class accompanied by Shweta.

  Another new class. New children. Raja observed everyone for a moment and then, for some unexplainable reason, withdrew into his shell. The atmosphere here was different from his classroom as there were children of different ages, drawn from different classes. Raja was uneasy.

  But Anupurba did not have to make an effort to put him at ease—Shweta did it for her. Garrulous Shweta never stopped chattering or giggling in the art class; she was always up to something. Anupurba largely ignored her antics. Sometimes she would abandon her own drawing and start helping the younger children with their work or she would knot their hair ribbons into flowers of different shapes or go and ask the children intent on their own drawings what they were up to even as her own work lagged behind. Now Shweta had found something else to keep her busy—Raja. Her efforts to make him feel at ease bore fruit. On other days Anupurba would have been irritated by Shweta’s lack of concentration, but today she welcomed it. She was Raja’s companion, his comfort factor across continents and cultures in an unfamiliar world which was now going to be his.

  ~

  The art lessons went on. Two weeks had gone by since Raja’s arrival. Now he was like any one else at Asha Jyoti. His occasional American accent gave the children innocent amusement. But Raja was unperturbed. He had realized by now that there was no malice behind the jokes and the laughter at his drawl.

  ‘Look Anupurba Aunty, Raja is pulling my hair.’

  Anupurba looked up from her work.

  ‘What are you doing, Raja?’ she said, a little firmly.

  She had never seen him doing anything mischievous before. Was he picking up the wrong habits from Shweta?

  ‘Nothing, Aunty.’

  He let go of Shweta’s hair and became quiet. His face turned red. It had taken him a long time to address his teachers as Aunty. Like all American children he had persisted in calling them Mr, Mrs, but now that had finally changed.

  ‘What do you mean by “nothing”?’ She was serious. ‘I saw you pull Shweta’s hair myself.’

  Raja said nothing. He sat with his head bowed. There was a triumphant smile on Shweta’s lips.

  Srinivas spoke up. ‘It isn’t Raja’s fault, Aunty. Shweta wasn’t letting him draw. She was spreading her hair all over the paper.’

  Anupurba suppressed her laughter with difficulty. Feigning anger, she said, ‘Shweta, I’ll have to punish you if you do it again. It’s not nice to disturb others in the classroom.’

  ‘Please, Anupurba Aunty,’ Raja said with sudden anxiety, ‘it’s okay. Shweta wasn’t doing it on purpose.’

  ‘Hm!’ Anupurba said. ‘Very well, Shweta, I’ll excuse you this time. But if I see you doing it again, I’ll send you back to your own class. No art class for you!’

  With her head lowered, Shweta picked up a pencil in her crooked fingers and busied herself in drawing.

  What a child this Shweta was!

  Anyone who took one look at Shweta could have guessed that she was suffering from some serious physical or mental disability. She had thin, pinched features. Her hands and legs were disproportionately tiny. Each one of her fingers and toes were crooked. Elongated face. Flat nose. Round eyes. Nothing was attractive about her, except her hair. The long curly locks fell in waves across her back. Her mother would sometimes insist on braiding her hair when she sent her to school, but the moment Shweta arrived she would pull out the ribbons with her crooked fingers and release her hair again. It was very clear how much she loved her tresses.

  The class ended. The children emerged from the room noisily. Unobtrusively, Anupurba observed Shweta from be
hind. Today she was dressed in a salwar kameez. Her arms were covered by the long, blue dupatta. The salwar extended to her feet. The deformity of her limbs was concealed. What dominated her presence was her curly hair, reaching down to her waist.

  She had glorious hair! Like a supermodel in a shampoo ad. Only, Shweta would never become a model. But she knew this was her most beautiful feature, as beautiful as it got in the world of beautiful people.

  Shweta might have become aware that Anupurba’s eyes were on her. She suddenly turned her head around, looked at Anupurba and broke into a dazzling smile. What beauty, what innocence there was in that smile!

  Anupurba couldn’t help but think: What future did the Shwetas of this world have?

  Not just today—that thought crossed her mind all the time, particularly as she watched the young adults among the children who were standing on the threshold of the springtime of their lives.

  She sometimes brought up this issue with her husband when they sat drinking tea together on a Sunday afternoon. ‘Tell me, Amrit, do these children have a future? They may have parents or grandparents now, but will they always be around to take care of them? How will they manage if they out-live them? Who will look after them?’

  She knew her husband had no answer but that didn’t stop her from asking.

  She had asked many others at Asha Jyoti the same question.

  Shobha would raise her hands heavenwards and say, ‘Who are we, Purba? Surely the same Creator who has brought them into this world will look after them. I believe they are children of God, hopefully a better God than the one who looks after us.’

  But Bani was more pragmatic. ‘Many of these children have a short life-span, Anupurba. In some ways, that is probably a better thing. Moreover, it makes no sense for us to worry about their future; their present is gloomy enough. Each moment is so painful, even for those who are able to get a lot of care. If the suffering isn’t physical, it’s mental.’