DO NOT FEAR

Sudha has been observing her little daughter, Deepa since a couple of days. The 12 year old Deepa is not like her normal self. She appears to be withdrawn, morose and off mood.

The mother in Sudha felt very uneasy. She had no idea about the reason behind her sulkiness. Deepa is a bright and sincere student all along. But now she hardly opens her books and even if she sits with her books open, it is clear that she is not at all concentrating on them. Her annual examinations are going on and naturally Sudha is worried.

Deepa is deep in thought. She is feeling very bad with the happenings of the past few days. Jairam, her classmate is a notorious bully and the bad boy of the class. In fact he is at least 3-4 years older than the others in the class. With frequent detentions and poor performances he is now still in class seven.

Her eyes are filled with tears. How dare he force her to do all those bad things? He intimidates all with his wicked ways and threats. She is no exception and she also is a helpless victim. How long will this last? She wondered sadly. She craves for a soothing soul to confide her plight and get some solace. But she is too scared to confess in anybody with the fear that he may become vengeful and harass her. He warned her very clearly with dire consequences if she opened her mouth.

Sudha could not control herself further. She neared Deepa and wiped her tears. "What is the matter, Deepa, why are you upset?"

Deepa startled but did not say anything. Sudha hugged her and stroked her hair fondly. "Do not hesitate, Deepa, tell me, what is troubling you?"

Deepa broke down sobbing. But she is not ready to confide, even in her mother. She is too scared of Jairam to open up.

Sudha tried her best to elicit information from her but could not succeed. Deepa continued to cry but did not say anything. Sudha sighed. 'What can I do with this girl? There is no doubt, something happened. But what could it be? How can I make her talk?'

She looked at her sadly. She still wanted to try. As a last attempt, she said, "Deepa, my child, look here. I am your mother. If you cry like that how can I bear? Anyway, I am sure, you are facing some problem. If you don't tell me, how can I know? If you tell me, I will try to help you. Tell me, please, what is the matter? Is somebody troubling you? I will not tell to anybody, I promise. I will keep it a secret and try to solve your problem. Say something, Deepa. Don't just go on crying. You are making me sad and worried. Do you like to hurt me, your mother?"

Deepa hugged her and hid her face in her bosom. "No, mummy, I don't want you to be sad." She swallowed hard. Then she looked up and wiping her tears, said, "Mummy, will you really not tell anybody?" Sudha nodded. "Not even Jairam? Don't let him know that I told you. Promise?" Then she added "And don't get angry or annoyed with me, please, will you?" Again she burst crying.

Sudha is confused to say the least. Where is all this leading to? What secret is on Deepa's mind? She doesn't want Jairam to know! Who is this Jairam? What did he do to her baby? She recalled all sorts of horrible stories about child abuses and sexual assaults. Did he do any harm to her?  Her heart skipped a beat. Oh, God! How to handle this situation?

Shaking her by the shoulders she almost shouted, "Who is this Jairam? What the hell did he do? Tell me quickly."

Deepa said between sobs. "Please, Mummy, forgive me. I know it is bad and.. and.. a sin. But he forced me giving me all sorts of threats."

Sudha is waiting with bated breath staring at her. Deepa swallowed hard. "He... he... he forced me to show him... show him... my..." Again she broke down.

Sudha's face reddened. "Tell me, Deepa, show him your... what?" She asked in a shrill tone.

Deepa wiped her tears and gathering some courage, said in a low tone. "I know, I should not have agreed. But what can I do? He is so big and strong. He is a very bad boy. Always gets low grades. Our teacher said this time it is impossible for him to get pass marks even. This is the third time for him, you know..."

Sudha was listening impatiently. 'Why is this girl diverting the point?' She frowned.

Deepa continued. "So if he fails this time, he will be sent away from this school. He pleaded with me to show him my paper in the examination. I know he needs some help. But how can I let him copy from my paper? I know, I should not encourage such cheating. So I refused. But he did not leave me. He threatened me that he would hit me hard if I don't agree. And he would make false complaints against me to the teacher. I was scared, Mummy, scared a lot. So last two days I allowed him to copy from my paper. Please, don't get angry with me, Mummy, I know it is a wrong thing to do. That's why I am sad and ashamed all these days. Again tomorrow, he will pester me and I have to agree. I don't want to do that. How can I escape from him, Mummy? I don't know what to do!" Again Deepa burst down. At the same time she felt light in heart having unloaded her burden which was tormenting her till then.

Sudha felt relieved in a way. Yet, she was moved to tears with her sad plight. Patting her head, she tried to soothe her saying, "It is okay, Deepa, don't cry. I can understand your plight. It is a wrong deed but you were helpless. At least now you should put a stop to it. Don't worry, I will have a word with your teacher. You need not worry. Now, relax and prepare for tomorrow's exam. He will not trouble you again. I will see to it."

Deepa wiped her tears and looked at her mother hopefully. "Really, Mummy?"

Sudha nodded. "Yes, of course, I will tell the teacher to change his seat away from others. Why didn't you tell me before? Or your teacher? Why did you suffer so much silently? When you know that boy is doing wrong and forcing you also to do likewise, you should not keep quiet. You should expose him and put a stop to all that. You need not take his threats seriously. He will not harm you. Don't be scared like this in future. Do not fear...ever.  Do you understand?"

Deepa nodded and after a while added, "But Mummy, I feel pity for him. Poor fellow, do you think the teacher will punish him severely? If only he does well in the exams!"

Sudha looked at her. "No, Deepa, you need not sympathise him. It is his fault. He should have studied well from the beginning. It seems he did not learn the lesson even after a couple of failures. Let him pay for his actions."

Deepa thought for a while and considered what her mother said. She nodded in agreement. 

ON GETTING PROMOTION

Suresh is a very simple person, always satisfied with his lot. Whatever comes his way he accepts cheerfully. He is always known to look at the brighter side of things. That is why he is nicknamed ‘Mr. Bright’.

That day, Suresh was very excited. From office, he hurried home in a jubilant mood and why not, he had a very cheerful news to convey to his wife.

“Look, I got promotion. Now, I will be a Senior Executive” He declared breathlessly with a beaming face. Quite naturally, his wife and children were elated.

“Thank god! What a good news!” Sujatha, his wife said with sparkling eyes. “This really deserves a celebration. At last now we would be able to afford certain things which I had been postponing since times immemorial.”

Suresh looked uneasily at her. “For example.....?”

Sujatha settled down on the old rickety folding chair and started counting her fingers. “First, let us purchase a decent sofa set, then a home Theater, a music system, a second double cot for the children, mattresses.....”

Suresh cleared his throat and said in a very cautious tone, “Of course... that is.... if you really think.... if we really need.... may not be immediately.... but we will buy..... oh, surely we will buy.....”

Sujatha glared at him. After twenty years of coexistence, she very well understood the outcome of such incoherent words. It clearly means that as usual, whatever she proposed will be postponed indefinitely- promotion not withstanding. But she did not like to argue, not today. Which wife wants to spoil the mood of dear hubby on the day of promotion that too as a senior executive? More time for that later on.

So she smiled sweetly at him. “At least, I will be able to employ a full time cook-cum-servant now - won’t I? With my rheumatism and asthma I am unable to cope with the household work..” She looked at him coyly.

His heart sank. He knew very well the exorbitant wages demanded by domestic servants. Although he was sympathetic towards his wife, who had been managing without a servant for the last fifteen years as an austerity measure, he knew very well that they would not be able to afford even a part-time servant, leave alone a full-time one. But he did not want to dampen her spirits. So he mumbled something unintelligibly. But she was clever enough to decipher his mumblings and she sighed.

Another thought occurred to her. “I hope we will be able to shift to a bigger house with a spare room for guests.” she said hopefully. At present they were staying in a three bedroom house. But she was always annoyed with the lack of exclusive guest room. Suresh groped for words. “With the revised rules and with the fancy rental rates, I am afraid, now we can afford a two-bedroom flat only.”

This time she could not control her rage. “When you were junior officer, we used to stay in three-bedroom independent houses. Now, after all these promotions, are we not in need of at least three bedrooms, leave alone a guest room. Being a senior executive, will you force your teenaged children to share a room and your guests to sleep in the drawing room?” She demanded.

“Daddy, we very much need separate rooms.” His teenaged son and daughter pleaded. “It will be awkward for us to share a room. And if we have any guests, which is very frequent, we will be disturbed a lot and our studies will suffer.”

Suresh looked helpless. “I will see what I can do.” As an afterthought he added cheerfully, “At least, this way you will have to sweep and mop a smaller house. It will reduce you workload.” It is not for nothing that he is called Mr. Bright. He is always able to discover a silver lining in everything. But nobody seemed to appreciate his point.

On the other hand Sujatha fumed “Will you be able to buy a car, at least?”

Suresh pondered a little. “I am afraid no, darling. With the escalating prices of petrol, what is the point? We will not be able to afford it.” he shrugged.

“But you will get the allowance.......”

“No, no it is paltry. It will not be sufficient to meet even the repayment of the loan. Moreover, office will provide conveyance for me.” He intended to say in a proud tone but he sounded sheepish.

“But what about me?” lamented Sujatha. “..... and me?’
...... and me?” two more voices echoed.

Suresh fumbled with his shirt buttons and tried to reason. “Look. Stop thinking about what we are getting from the office. Start thinking about what we can contribute. Why don’t you realise that this promotion means I will be holding a very responsible position. It is a reward for my hard work and sincerity and indicates the trust and confidence the office is having in me and my talent.”

“Talent, My foot!” Sujatha hissed. “Does it atleast mean a reduced workload for you?”

Suresh thought about his hard working colleagues and sighed. “On the contrary I may have to devote more time and attention to the office.......”

She interrupted. “That means you will spend less time at home with us by going early, sitting late, carrying files home.....?” Suresh nodded nervously. Sujatha shook her head disapproving. In a sarcastic tone she inquired.

“Forgive my ignorance. But I am curious to know. Will you get any increase in your salary?”

Suresh swiftly calculated and with a broad ear-to-ear gim he declared “Of course, why not! After the additional tax deductions and other things, I will get a raise of eleven rupees and sixty five paise”

“What” Sujatha screamed “A promotion and an increase of only ELEVEN RUPEES and sixty five paise! Pray, tell me, what for this promotion about which you are so excited?”

Suresh was deeply hurt and wanted very much to silence her with a very convincing justification. But how much harder he thought, he could not find any. In a dejected tone he repeated ,“Yes, what for?” and continued to think, think and think. And still he is thinking unsuccessfully. Will anyone please help him?

YEH DIL MANGE MORE..AHA..

Being married to an officer with an all- India transferable job has its own advantages. The wife, (read ‘me’) can have the good fortune of living in a variety of cities at the expense of the office and enjoy the varied exposure. On the other hand, she can have an emotional edge over the husband what with occasional taunts like - ‘your job is putting me to so much trouble’ or ‘because of you, I became a rolling stone all over the country’ or ‘how can you or your bosses understand the numerous problems faced by a housewife by a sudden transfer’ - so on and so forth. I can indeed supply a bulky volume of similar gems if anybody is interested.

As my father was not in a transferable job and as ours was a secluded family for various reasons, I never had the opportunity to visit any place other than my hometown during my childhood. I used to envy my friends when they described their summer trips. I wished with all my heart to get a chance to travel the length and breadth of the country at least after my marriage. Perhaps my humble prayers evoked enough sympathy in the God Almighty to oblige. True to the saying, when He chose to rain, it poured. Thus started our tryst with transfers which sometimes made our friends to wonder whether our initial ‘M’ stands for ‘Mobile’! or ‘Moving’! My husband underwent eleven transfers in his long career of forty years and we followed him wherever he took us.

Initially, I used to feel terribly out of place whenever I was driven to a completely strange city as a result of yet another transfer. But I must admit that each transfer had its own interesting moments, adding to my memories - both pleasant as well as otherwise. It helped to enrich my knowledge of languages, geography, sociology, etc. For instance, I learnt that coconut oil and mustard oil are also used for cooking in certain parts of the country instead of til oil - the only oil known to me; that there are languages called Haryanvi, Dogri, etc., not to mention the various forms of Hindi like Awadhi, Bhojpuri, etc.; that there are Punjabi Hindus also contrary to my belief that the term Punjabi refers to only a Sardarji with a colourful turban; that our brethren from North term all South Indians collectively as Madrasis; that there are seven sister states in the North East with distinct cultures and traditions exploring which is quite fascinating; that there are more than one different Bihu festivals celebrated in Assam, that there are separate queues for women drivers of two wheelers at the petrol pumps in Manipur; that in parts of Kerala matriarchial system is in vogue; and many such amazing facts!

We took advantage of each transfer to tour the nearby places. Thus, we had chance to visit Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Shillong to Amritsar, Nashik to Puri - to cite a few. But for my husband’s transfers, I would not have been able to visit all those lovely places of tourist interest.

But life does not mean only visiting places, I agree. I encountered a lot of problems and inconveniences too - the barriers of language being the most prominent one. Somehow, my ignorance of the local language and unfamiliarity with the place often made our friends and neighbours develop a soft corner for me. People always used to ‘bechari-fy’ me and were head over heels to lend a helping hand. Of course, I cannot say the same thing about vendors and shopkeepers, though I needed that more.

It is a fact that human relationships are quite complex in nature. The various manifestations of the same can create confusion now and then. I think ‘mother’ is the only person to be addressed more or less similarly in different languages. From ‘maa’ to ‘amma’, it is only a slight phonetic variation. But it is not so in some other cases.

Many of our non-Telugu speaking friends used to think that my daughter’s name is ‘Akka’ - which means elder sister in Telugu - because my son calls her so. She used to feel offended when the Oriya children called her ‘naani1 with reverence. Yes, ‘naani’ in Oriya means elder sister whereas in Hindi it means grandma. When I addressed my father as ‘Nanna’ in Telugu, my neighbours used to wonder why my mother looked almost as old as her father, having confused that with the Hindi word ‘nana’ meaning maternal grandfather. Whereas ‘dada’ is an elder brother for some, he is paternal grandfather for some others.

I was often worried about the problems our kids might face. Fortunately, our children, true to their genes, always adjusted well to the frequent changes of schools and environment. To their credit, they came out with flying colours. While making umpteen rounds of the schools seeking their admission, one thing used to bug me. Quite often, I came across an ominous notice in the schools, declaring that the parents need not meet the principal to speak about the admissions. I never could fathom that one! Why would any parent wish to meet any principal if not about admissions? Surely we do not discuss the country’s foreign policy or the prevailing drought situation with a distinguished principal of a reputed educational institution. Do we? Anyway we simply used to ignore that and get our work done.

Long back, watching me pack our things on the eve of a transfer, my three-year old son wondered “But, Mummy, how will you pack our house?” I explained to him that we will have another house in the new place. He was pleased at the prospect. For a long time afterwards he kept counting and updating the latest total of the houses we ‘have’ at different places. But gradually he lost track. Quite understandable for the little one as we averaged three years in one center. And adding to the total number of our ‘houses’, in places where we exceeded three years, we were forced by different circumstances to change house at least, from one locality to some other. That itself in big cities amounted to as good as a transfer.

During the last phase of my husband’s career, we crossed the record and for the last ten years of his service, we stayed put in one city. To compensate that I had to satisfy myself with three shiftings of residence - albeit in the same apartment  building. The novelty never wears off.

All this was before the advent of satellite TV, internet, etc., which seems to shrink the world a lot - and at a time when there were no STD or e-mail facilities. Being far away from hometown, we had to depend on erratic postal services or delayed telegrams or undependable trunk calls from sporadic post offices to send and receive news to and from our dear ones.

As there was no computerised train reservation system and as air travel was out of reach of salaried employees and their families like us, our journeys sometimes used to get bungled up.

I clearly remember that whenever we planned a journey home from Chandigarh, we had to go all the way to Delhi for booking the tickets - that too almost two months in advance. If, for any reason, the programme was changed, again we had to go to Delhi to cancel them. Added to that, to get a ticket for any alternate subsequent date at a short notice was also impossible. So to be on the safe side, we used to book 2 or 3 sets of tickets for different dates. Whenever we had to go home from either Trivandrum or Bombay, the journey involved a change of train on the way. Onward booking always used to be a problem. We had to request the booking office to send a telegram to the concerned intermediate station and we had to inquire the fate almost on a daily basis. Again, as we were not sure of the availability, we used to purchase 2 or 3 sets of tickets. I am sure we must have paid the Indian Railways much bigger amount by way of cancellations than the fares of the actual journeys undertaken.

Still with all these ups and downs, in retrospect, I feel that all the trouble is worth my while. Now I frequently come across a number of friends from all corners of the country - Punjab da Puttars, Ahomese, Babu Moshais, Maharashtrakars - oh, the list is endless. Isn’t it quite thrilling to have such a variety of friends?

But of late, I have a feeling that the younger generation has a totally different perspective. Year after year, whenever the transfer season arrives, I hear more and more grumbles and complaints. I come across many a wife voicing resentment about even the first transfer!

Recently when I was trying to convince a younger friend of mine to come to terms with her husband’s impending transfer to a place barely 200 Kms away, she gave me a murderous look and hissed “It is very easy to speak. If you are in my position and faced with a transfer, then only you will realise the problem”.

I smiled and enlightened her on the subject. She gasped and shrieked “Oh, so many transfers! How could you cope up? You must be feeling quite relieved now that you are comparatively static as your husband retired. Aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “No, dear. On the other hand, I miss the fun and excitement. To tell the truth, even now - Yeh dil maange more”

She rolled her eyes and sighed - “Aaha!”