by Shilpa Raj
Everyone appeared pleased.
But the most important assurance DG gave me was that my parents and grandmother wouldn’t be informed of what had happened. Appa would have called me a sulay—a prostitute—as he had shouted at Kavya when he discovered she liked Prashanth. Amma, for her part, would have wept as if the world had come to an end. And though Grandmother might not scold me outright, her silence would testify to her disappointment and shame.
During the next vacation, months later, Appa startled me by saying, ‘Shilpa, you can do anything you want in your life. Your mother and I will not stop you. You marry the boy Dr. George approves of. But one thing I ask is that you do not run away with a boy and disgrace the family.’ His request stunned me. Never before had he said anything like this. Was it his concern for my happiness or the family’s honor?
‘No, Appa. I will never do that,’ I said. But deep inside, I was filled with self-doubt. I wasn’t confident I would be able to live up to my family’s expectations. How could I be certain of always being a ‘good girl’?
I stayed awake for a long time that night with my father’s words echoing in my head. I had heard stories of young girls running away from homes and returning pregnant. For those girls’ parents, the disgrace made attracting suitable husbands for their other daughters almost impossible. Village gossip and contemptuous stares from neighbors were hard to ignore. All Appa really owned was his family, and my honor was of the utmost importance to him. I also had Kavya to consider; I didn’t want my reputation ever to hurt her chances.
Once, Grandfather’s brother Chauraj had lured a twelve-year-old school girl into the fields with promises of sweets and was caught fondling her behind a bush. This dreadful incident was hard to forget. The news spread quickly, and the village wasn’t about to ignore it.
It was not the first time Chauraj had been caught fondling young girls. Grandmother remembered the night long ago when the rains had flooded her hut and she had sought refuge in her brother-in-law’s place. In the middle of the night she woke up to find her youngest daughter, Rani, asleep in his lap, his hands groping her daughter’s thighs.
‘You bastard,’ Grandmother screamed, snatching her daughter away. She picked up a stick used to chase cattle and beat him until he begged her to stop. ‘You have a daughter. Would you do this to her?’ She spat at him and vowed never to step into his house again.
This time, however, it was a matter involving someone outside our family, and a minor. There was going to be some sort of public retribution. Chauraj was dragged in front of the ten-member panchayat, the village’s self-governing body. The witness to the alleged crime, a Gunna’s wife, was credible enough that the panchayat sought no further evidence. Only the question of punishment remained.
By the time we got to the small granary where the panchayat was meeting, an agitated crowd had already gathered. Men were seated on the ground in front, except for the landlords and panchayat members who had positioned themselves upon colorful plastic chairs. Women sat on the ground in their separate places under a nearby banyan tree. Over the heads of gawking laborers, I could see my great-uncle standing with his head down, a broken man at the mercy of those who were to decide his fate. His cotton vest was torn in places and his khaki shorts were muddy from being dragged across the field.
The air was choked with tension. The panchayat chairman, a wealthy owner of a sugarcane plantation, listened to what others in the crowd had to say and scratched his head in contemplation. The girl’s mother, a stout vegetable shop owner, stepped forward and spat in the accused’s frightened face. Another woman shouted, ‘Ammun dunga! Sulaymaganai!’ which means ‘motherfucker’ and ‘son of a whore’. Grandmother clapped her hands over my ears.
After a brief discussion among the panchayat members, its chairman ordered that my great-uncle be taken into one of the rooms where grain sacks were unloaded before distribution as rations to the poor. Everyone except me knew what the landlord had in mind as punishment. The murmuring of the crowd made it look like a single organism, rippling with satisfaction. Four rough-looking men led the offender into the room and bolted the door behind them.
‘What are they doing?’ I asked Grandmother. Grandmother didn’t reply. No one explained what was happening behind that door.
Half an hour passed but the door didn’t open. I could see Grandfather growing restless and worried, but no one else seemed to be in any hurry.
Grandfather stood up and shouted, ‘This has gone on too long.’ He pointed towards the door, shaking in anger. ‘Why do you have to bash him so much, sir?’ Grandfather pleaded with the chairman, his whole body trembling. ‘Please let him go. It won’t happen again.’
The chairman sniffed, irked that a laborer would question him. He turned to two hefty men behind him and ordered that Grandfather be given a few lashings.
‘Grandfather! Grandfather!’ I called out frantically.
Other voices joined in, speaking in support. ‘What did this man do? Why punish him?’ a serious-looking elderly man asked bitterly.
Grandmother ran towards the panchayat officials, shouting, ‘What wrong did he do? You can’t harm him.’
The chairman stared at Grandmother as though she had no right to speak, then he unhurriedly stood up and slapped her. ‘You better shut up. Your husband is as guilty as his brother. Couldn’t he keep his brother in check?’
That was not an argument others could accept. The crowd began to turn against the chairman. After all, he was known to have a mistress of his own among the servant women he kept in his home. After a few torturous minutes, the chairman decided to let both Grandfather and his brother go.
Everything that followed seemed like a movie stuck in fast-forward. I remember walking home with my grandmother, both of us in tears. Grandfather was by his brother’s side, holding him by his shoulders as he limped along, wracked with pain. Shame had seized them and neither brother could look up.
I couldn’t let myself become a source of shame to my family. I knew my father was proud of me. That mattered a lot, and I couldn’t let him down. There was so much I had learnt from both of my different upbringings, in the village and at Shanti Bhavan. But in the end I knew no one could do it for me; the change had to come from within.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: PLAYING PARENT TO PARENTS
Not long ago, Appa accused Amma of flirting with local men after she lashed out at him for cheating on her. Hearing his shameless charge, Amma said, ‘The lightning has already struck my head and now I’m being bitten by a snake.’ This expression came to my mind when Mrs. Law suddenly announced in the midst of our financial struggles that she was leaving Shanti Bhavan permanently to take care of her ailing husband and infant granddaughter.
I never thought the day would come when we would not see Mrs. Law’s elegant, petite figure moving briskly through the campus, checking on classes and the dorms. It was sad to think we would no longer have her life-skills sessions and literature classes to fill our Tuesday afternoons.
What happened next was even more surprising. Passing by Aunty Shalini’s room one morning, I noticed that her normally neatly arranged space had been cleared entirely. Later that day, we heard DG had sent her away. Throughout all her years at Shanti Bhavan, her use of corporal punishment and her verbal abuse of children had been hidden from DG. The day he found out was her last.
The departures of Mrs. Law and Aunty Shalini were hard to fathom. For the next several days, it was the only topic of discussion among staff and children. We were afraid that no one was experienced enough to fill the void. These two women had been in my life ever since I entered the school at the age of four and, however complicated the relationships, I would miss them. Who could be as good as they had been? It was then that DG himself arrived, quickly taking charge of daily operations and reshuffling responsibilities of several staff members. Change swept through the school like a wild fire as we flexed and adapted. Thus began a new era in Shanti Bhavan under the guardianship of DG.
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p; Despite the kindness and understanding I had met with in the session in Mrs. Law’s office, I still had the lingering sense that DG thought poorly of me, so his constant presence on campus was not something I looked forward to with any pleasure. I was careful not to do anything that would land me back in his office. I avoided running into him on campus, fearing he would scold me for having done something wrong. Once I was walking along the school corridor when I saw him approaching. I quickly ducked my head, turned around, and darted into the music room, worried that DG had seen me avoiding him.
I tried just as hard to avoid run-ins with my classmates. In the aftermath of my disastrous first contacts with men, and the lasting consequences of my betrayal of my best friend, I felt safer distancing myself from everyone. Sheena had graduated and gone without ever softening towards me. I was certain none of my remaining classmates really liked me. They didn’t include me in their conversations and didn’t invite me to join in their escapades. Once I found them sitting in a circle behind the school building, reliving their secret expedition to the fruit orchard in pursuit of mangoes. My presence was simply ignored.
I was defiant, again, determined to show that I could do without them. But this time, instead of fighting with anyone, I disappeared into books, reading with furious intensity to prepare for the coming twelfth grade national exams. I had to prove to my classmates I could rise above them in something. But on late evenings, alone, that fierce stubbornness faded into the hollowness of my isolation. I blamed Sheena for my loneliness and the absence of affection from anyone. It didn’t occur to me then that no one could satisfy my constant need for attention. ‘You’re like a bottomless pit,’ Sheena used to say. I’m surprised she wasn’t even more exasperated, burdened as she was by my need to be showered with affection at all times.
Even Vijay, a boy to whom I had taken a liking, resented my demands. But for some reason he seemed prepared to put up with me for a while, and liked me well enough to display his affection in private and sometimes to acknowledge me as a friend in public. He was usually very quiet and hardly spoke to anyone, rarely taking part in school events like debates and dances. Still, everyone noticed him because of the brown leather gloves and bandages he wore to protect his arms from the bright sun.
Vijay never knew who his father was. When he was four years old, a group of men promised his mother, a young, pretty woman, that they would find her a well-paying job outside her village. Believing that God might be helping her to find a way to look after her son, she left with them in their vehicle, only to be gang raped on the borders of her village.
Shattered and disgraced, she returned home to face the insults of the villagers. Many placed the blame on her, saying she had tempted the men, and condemned her as a woman with poor morals. Unable to bear the humiliation, the tormented woman poured kerosene on her own body and lit herself on fire. Seeing his mother ablaze, little Vijay ran to embrace and protect her. His mother didn’t survive, and Vijay was gruesomely burnt. The scars on his arms are grave reminders of that horrible night.
Seated next to Vijay in the dining hall, I would try not to stare at his scarred arms, though it was hard not to. In the evenings, he would often step off the football ground and come up to where I’d be watching on the side, just to say a quick hello or ask me what I thought of his dribbling skills. To feel wanted and liked by someone was what I wished for, and once I decided I had his affections, all my problems vanished and I focused on enjoying every bit of our burgeoning relationship.
When Keerthi said, ‘It’s just an infatuation. You will break up,’ I refused to speak to her for days. I was convinced it was true love. That is, until Vijay sent me a message through one of my classmates that he didn’t want to continue the relationship. He never told me why, but I suspect now that I was just too overwhelming.
I disappeared back into my studies, determined to get into a top college. Teachers constantly reminded us of the importance of these exams, urging us not to waste precious prep time. Grandmother would tell me that if I prayed hard enough, I would do well, but by now I was certain that prayer alone couldn’t take care of my future. One miracle had already set me on this path, and God might not choose to grant me another.
In the midst of our rigorous class schedules, DG would ask us to take turns escorting visiting guests on tours of the Shanti Bhavan campus. The chance to do these tours meant that I got to talk to interesting people—journalists from the New York Times, academicians, business executives, philanthropists, and artists from Broadway plays. As we walked around the campus, they shared their life-stories and adventures, carrying me away to a vast world of possibilities outside the iron gates of Shanti Bhavan.
Most visitors were amazed by the subtle natural beauty of the landscape, framed with long stretches of lush green grass, fruit orchards, and a wide variety of birds, squirrels, and chameleons that made their homes with us. I often pointed out to visitors my favorite spot on campus—the majestic dark rocks just behind my dormitory which sat like devout sages, appearing to pray in the direction of the northern sky. I told them, ‘Sometimes after sunset, I lie on top of the largest rock, gazing into the night to spot a shooting star to make a wish.’ But I sighted shooting stars on only two occasions in all my fifteen years at Shanti Bhavan and both times I prayed to God to protect my mother and bring her back home safely.
Apart from seeing the school facilities, visitors were often curious to learn how we were being brought up by the school authorities who had taken over much of that responsibility from our parents. Some seemed bothered by the fact we were living for most of the year at school, away from our families from a young age.
It was always difficult when visitors asked, ‘How do your siblings feel about not being able to study here?’ Kavya’s livid face would flash before my eyes and I would struggle to answer. Each time I responded truthfully: that my younger sister felt unhappy about my having gotten the chance to live a finer, wider life than she, but my brother seldom expressed any disappointment.
‘At times I too questioned the policy of one child from each family. It causes bitter conflict amongst siblings,’ I admitted. ‘But in the end I feel the rule is right.’ DG had told us that Shanti Bhavan had to strictly enforce this policy in order to spread the benefits to as many families as possible. One child was enough to take care of the rest in the family. Many visitors agreed that this made sense, but there were others who found it divisive.
Some visitors were concerned that we were losing touch with our cultural and indigenous heritage as they called it. I could see why they might feel that way, but I explained that we were familiar with the ways of our villages. The nearly three months we spent at home during annual vacations over the years were part of our childhoods. I had witnessed the hardships my parents and grandparents faced each day, their struggle to provide for the family, the beliefs they lived by, and the customs and traditions that chained them to old ways. My siblings were a constant reminder of how hard it was to grow up in a society that looked down upon us socially. I didn’t think it was necessary to live through it every day to recognize it.
The many incidents that I had witnessed—Appa being beaten by a landlord’s men, the fights among neighbors, and my own family’s quarrels with our relatives—had marked me. This was a life far different from that at school. I adjust to each situation depending on where I am, and with whom. The two cultures are equally a part of me. But I did not like being told by my grandmother that girls had to marry the person their elders chose for them while it was okay for men to decide for themselves, nor could I agree that Aunt Maria’s husband should be free to take away all her savings simply because he felt he was entitled to it. I chose not to follow those of my family’s beliefs that I felt were dictated by caste-based practices, superstition, and ignorance of the outside world.
‘The school teaches us to read widely and be prepared to think for ourselves,’ I said. ‘Living in the village to preserve its culture and traditions is not a respon
sibility I can take on or want to accept.’
Some visitors agreed with me while others thought I was too westernized or arrogant and had lost touch with my roots. One visitor even commented, ‘You can’t act like you are in America. Why don’t you learn about the Ragas and the Vedas?’
I was taken aback, embarrassed at not knowing enough about them. ‘We do. But I need to read more,’ I said.
Most Indian visitors enquired whether our upbringing included spiritual and religious teachings. I replied that we did not practice any particular religion in Shanti Bhavan, but followed the universal teachings of all major religions. They were happy to see the holy books of different faiths displayed next to each other in the prayer hall, along with the bronze idol of a tree branch that was meant to symbolize open-mindedness and growth. ‘Some of us pray together silently in the hall,’ I said. ‘And we don’t question each other’s beliefs.’
Upon hearing that we celebrated major festivals of different religions, one visitor replied with a chuckle, ‘That’s because you all want to have more holidays.’
The question about boys was always embarrassing, and I certainly didn’t want any of the staff to hear my answers. My own silly romantic moments with Vijay were all the dating experience I had had. Though it was short-lived, the excitement of getting to know a boy was enough for me to like the idea. I told visitors that the school discouraged it, although we always found our way around that. Sometimes I would tell them about Kavina’s relationship with her senior, Avnith, which had survived seven long years of restriction by the staff, and how, despite being away in college, Avnith still managed to send letters to her through secret channels. I said that I wanted to choose my partner in life, but only after I finished college; I had much to accomplish to start a good career.
I wanted visitors to know that all of us felt free to make our own choices and were not constrained by traditional practices of any kind. ‘Shanti Bhavan takes no official position on political or religious issues. We don’t follow the philosophy of any one individual or community,’ I said. ‘Instead, we strongly believe in living by globally shared values such as honesty, integrity, and transparency. We grew up recognizing the importance of humane qualities such as kindness, generosity, and humility. These were taught to us by example as much as by books.’