The children made constant movements—and the special thing about these children was that this always signalled engagement. They got down to work.
Ranjana busied herself in arranging the drawings that the children had done earlier inside the cupboard. Anupurba moved closer to her. ‘Who’s Uma?’ she asked.
‘One of the children selected for this class,’ Ranjana replied. ‘But she has a terrible temper. Her father was late in bringing her lunch today and so . . . !’
The sound of squeaking wheels made her turn around. Anupurba turned around too. Seated on a wooden plank with small wheels, propelling herself with her two hands came a thin, dark girl, some twelve or thirteen years old. Her head looked just too large for her body, but there was no other abnormality in the upper part of her body. But what Anupurba saw below her waist made her feel queasy. The girl’s legs were thin and strangely twisted. Completely deformed. Poor thing!
She stopped at the door. Behind her, stood a middle-aged man, shrinking into himself.
‘Why have you come here?’ the girl said to him angrily. ‘Now go!’
She turned around and came into the classroom. No asking for permission to enter. No sign of remorse or apology on her face because she had come late to class. She came in, unperturbed, and hoisted herself into a vacant chair with her hands. Without looking at anyone she drew out a pencil from the bag that hung around her neck.
‘Hello Uma!’ Ranjana said.
No answer.
‘See who is here! We have a new Aunty to teach us art.’
This time Uma looked up to glance once at Anupurba, then she asked in an irreverent tone, ‘What shall I draw?’
Anupurba forced a smile on her face. Walking up to Uma, she placed a sheet of paper in front of her and patiently repeated the instruction she had given to the other children.
Uma inclined her head to listen. Then, without a word, she gripped the pencil in her left hand and started her work, as if Anupurba did not exist.
Anupurba was beginning to feel a little offended, but then she quickly checked herself. What was she doing? Taking offence at the behaviour of a child with a disability!
She walked over to the cupboard. Ranjana was still there. ‘Look over these drawings later at your convenience, Anupurba,’ she said. ‘If you approve, we can select some of them for the exhibition.’
‘Sure,’ Anupurba said. Then lowering her voice, she asked, ‘Uma—is her problem similar to that of Radhika?’
Ranjana’s hands froze for a moment. Just as she was about to say something, came a sudden outburst of giggling from the children, followed by loud whispers.
Ranjana stood up. ‘What’s all this?’ she said in mock anger, ‘Why all this noise?’
‘Ranjana Aunty, Ranjana Aunty,’ a child was unable to suppress his laughter. ‘Srinivas has drawn a rabbit. He says he hops like a rabbit when he walks, so one day he’s going to turn into a real rabbit and hop around the whole world. Hee hee!’
Several other children laughed in unison.
The nine-year-old Srinivas said in a hurt voice, ‘Bipin says he’ll turn into a lion and eat me up!’
‘Don’t you be afraid, Srinivas,’ Lata said. ‘If he turns into a lion, I’ll become a tiger and fight him.’
Little Bipin, who was unable to speak clearly, said something in a muffled voice which Anupurba was unable to understand. But the others were used to him; they understood him all right. There was loud laughter. Ranjana laughed too. ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ she said. ‘Time’s nearly up. Finish what you’ve been doing!’
Through all this, Uma sat gravely, taking no part in the merriment and not saying a word to anyone, completely immersed in the paper, pencil and her crayons.
The bell rang; it was the end of school.
‘Yippee!’ the children shouted in joy, like children everywhere. The only difference was that instead of making a dash for freedom, these children inched their way to the school buses—limping, crawling or in wheelchairs.
Uma was the only exception. When she heard the bell she raised her head momentarily. No excitement. ‘I haven’t finished,’ she said, addressing no one in particular, ‘There’s a bit left. I’ll take this home and finish it there.’
‘No Uma, leave it here,’ Ranjana said gently. ‘Anupurba Aunty will have a look at what you’ve done today. You can finish it when she comes back on Thursday. Is that all right?’
No answer. No sign of either acknowledgment or resentment. Uma put the sheet of drawing paper aside and began to put her things away into the bag. Then hanging the bag around her neck, she descended from the chair onto the wooden plank below in one quick practised move and pushed herself out of the classroom.
‘You wanted to know what her problem is?’ Ranjana was asking.
Anupurba turned her gaze away from the sight of the girl on a plank with wheels, back to her guide.
‘Yes, her legs are crippled, like Radhika’s—but the similarity ends there. Radhika has feelings. She communicates so well. But no one has ever seen Uma smile. No one has heard her speak pleasantly. Her parents are lower middle class people. But they have sacrificed their lives for her. With them it’s always ‘Uma, Uma, Uma.’ She could have brought her own lunch from home like the other children, but her father works early mornings and returns in the afternoons so that she can have a hot meal. He sits beside her at lunch, watching her eat. Her mother cooks all kinds of dishes for her; on some days she comes here herself, carrying her youngest baby. But all this has no value for Uma. She behaves as though she’s doing them a favour. She gets very angry with them if the smallest thing goes haywire!’
‘And none of you tell her anything? She cannot be disciplined?’
‘If she were a normal child we might have tried to discipline her. But what can you tell someone whose mind is imprisoned inside a crippled body? Even then, Mrs Mathur spoke to her father a couple of times and asked him not to do so much. I tried explaining things to them as well. But they’re such doting parents! They think it’s some sin of theirs that is responsible for Uma’s suffering and so they must serve her all their lives. They send her for therapy and counselling regularly. But a fire is burning inside her.’
~
Anupurba gathered her purse, said goodbye to Ranjana and stepped out. She was no longer wondering about Uma. A sense of helplessness came upon her as she started walking towards where the car was parked. Suddenly, she felt very alone.
Somashekhar was there to pick her up. He noticed the pensive look and was curious about what Madam had been doing all day in this unusual place but he did not say anything. He was not supposed to. On the ride back home neither of them said a word.
Painting by Premchand © Spastics Society of Karnataka
Three
A week and a half had passed. Now that she had three classes behind her, things were easier for Anupurba in some sense—but even then, sometimes she felt uneasy for reasons she did not quite know. She was pondering the strangeness of this feeling while getting down from her car on Thursday. In some ways, she was quite used to Asha Jyoti by now; there was no reason to be apprehensive. Anupurba told herself that she must take it easy.
The watchman opened the gates for her as usual. As she walked across the garden, she ran into Mrs Shanta Mathur, the Principal. Anupurba had not met her since that first encounter at the Christmas party.
She should have called on the Principal on her first day at Asha Jyoti, before her first class. That’s how it would have been at any other school—but Asha Jyoti was unlike any other school. Here, the Principal had just so many things to attend to. She wasn’t always there in her room. Somehow, Anupurba also had not really tried.
‘Oh, Anupurba! I’m so sorry; I haven’t been able to meet you at all. You know, I’ve been frightfully busy at the Health Centre and hardly had time to breathe! I’ve had to go there almost every day,’ Mrs Mathur said hurriedly. She came across as a very genuine person.
‘Yes, I know. Ranjana
told me. The Health Centre has just been started, hasn’t it?’ Anupurba said.
‘About three months ago,’ Mrs Mathur said. ‘Only for the spastic children. We had started it here at first, with two full-time doctors, for our own children. But when the news spread, neighbouring children started coming. How could we refuse them?’
‘Are you able to manage with just two doctors?’ Anupurba asked.
‘How could we? We had to appoint one more. In addition, several eminent doctors from the city volunteer their services for an hour or two every week. That’s how our Health Centre is run. It’s God who looks after everything; or else, who are we?’ Mrs Mathur looked up at the sky and raised her hands to her forehead. ‘But tell me about yourself. I hope there are no problems?’
‘Oh no, not at all. In fact, I’m enjoying myself,’ Anupurba said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as she could.
Mrs Mathur looked at her for a moment, as if to probe whether it was really true.
‘Have you had lunch, Anupurba? You have? Well, anyway, do come to my room and have a cup of coffee while I eat before the classes begin.’
‘Sure, Mrs Mathur,’ Anupurba said.
The two walked over to Mrs Mathur’s room.
It wasn’t the kind of ornate, official-looking room that one typically expects for a school Principal. There was a large desk with a heap of papers on one side. The three visitor chairs were mismatched. A flower vase stood behind the desk up on a stool that did not fit in with the rest of the furniture. Behind the Principal’s wooden chair, there was a large framed photograph of Mother Teresa, which dominated the whole room. Mrs Mathur was clearly at ease in her own place.
She took out her lunch and asked someone to send coffee. Her lunch was simple—just two dry chapattis, a bowl of moong dal, some boiled vegetables and some salad.
‘I am a sackful of ailments,’ Mrs Mathur said uncomplainingly. ‘So I’ve got to live on this dry, boiled stuff. Diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure—they’ve all come and nested inside me, as if they couldn’t find shelter anywhere else.’ She had an amusing way with words.
‘My sons wanted me to travel, to visit London and Paris, to go on conducted tours round the world. Their wives tell me that I should sit at home and watch TV, read or just relax if I didn’t wish to travel. Go shopping, meet with friends. Play with the grandchildren, if there is nothing else to do. But I know very well I cannot do any of these things—not in this life. And I’ve been able to convince my husband. Fortunately, he’s mad about golf and bridge, and so he has no complaints. He’s happy with his club. I am happy too. Asha Jyoti has become my world. I can’t live without it.’
Anupurba was listening intently.
‘This will be my twentieth year here. And do you know, Anupurba, I had actually said ‘no’ before I first came here.’
Her husband had retired when she was fifty-two . Her two sons had already moved to Bangalore with their wives and children. Her two capable sons. Her daughters-in-law were more than daughters to her. Their telephone calls never stopped: ‘Come over! Come and live with us! Why do you want to remain in Bombay after you’ve retired?’ they kept saying.
After a great deal of thought, Mr and Mrs Mathur decided that indeed there was no good reason for them to stay away from the children. The house in Vile Parle was sold, they packed their belongings and came to Bangalore.
‘Bombay was home after my marriage,’ Mrs Mathur said. ‘Thirty years I taught in the same convent school. I was the Principal of the school when we left Bombay, managing eleven hundred children. Could I have given up everything suddenly to sit quietly at home?’
Anupurba could understand the feeling. She exclaimed, ‘One feels suffocated!’
‘You are absolutely right!’ Mrs Mathur said. ‘That’s exactly what happened to me. And then someone told me about this school. A trustee actually.’
She had felt uncomfortable at first, just like Anupurba had. And very nervous as well. Could she ever learn to manage a school for children with disabilities? She had no training or experience. It seemed daunting.
The trustee who had spoken to her said, ‘Give it a try. If you don’t like it, you can stop.’
Far from liking it, Shanta Mathur was startled when she first saw the school. Someone in the bureaucracy had taken pity and the government had given the institution an acre and a half of barren, rocky land near the edge of the city. An apology for a compound wall was put up; it was collapsing in several places. In a far corner stood the school building with a tiled roof. That was it.
Actually, it would be wrong to call it a building—it was no more than a large shed. Wooden partitions divided it into three rooms. Two of them were classrooms; the third was, in short, a multipurpose room. That was the office, the sitting room for the two teachers, the Principal’s chamber—everything.
Mrs Mathur was shocked. The desk, made of crude planks, had a primitive telephone set. A cheap desk calendar sat by its side. Someone ferreted out a shaky, folding aluminium chair for her to sit on. On one side of the desk was an aged cupboard. Someone must have picked up discarded furniture. There were a few brown paper files and some pamphlets inside the cupboard, which must have been printed when the school began.
Before she sat down at her desk, Shanta took a walk around the two ‘classrooms’. There seemed to be no end to surprises. There were only fifteen children in the school. Fifteen! Shanta Mathur, who had managed a school with eleven hundred students, would have to settle finally for fifteen! Crazy! It would probably be far better to stay at home and play with her grandchildren. Or follow her sons’ advice to go on a world tour.
The first day had not yet ended when, at about two in the afternoon, Shanta made a phone call to the trustee. ‘Excuse me, Mr Chaturvedi,’ she said, ‘I can’t do this.’
At the other end, Mr Chaturvedi made his entreaties. ‘Give it a year’s time,’ he begged.
‘No, it’s impossible,’ she said. Unknown to her, Shanta’s voice must have risen. ‘It would be different if I was twenty-five,’ she said. ‘At fifty-two, I can’t afford to experiment. I can’t take on this responsibility. Please excuse me.’
After she had put the phone down, Shanta realized that everyone had overheard her conversation with Mr Chaturvedi. Even the children sitting on the other side of those wooden partitions. What could she do? She picked up her purse and stepped out into the veranda listlessly.
She felt something getting entangled around her right foot as she walked down the steps. Shanta was startled—it wasn’t some animal, was it? Anything was possible in this wilderness. About to kick the thing away, she looked down. It wasn’t an animal or anything like that. What she saw around her foot were two tiny hands.
‘Don’t go, Aunty! Please don’t go away!’ The owner of those two hands, a tiny girl of seven or eight, had dragged herself out of the classroom and crawled onto the veranda. The soft, expressive eyes were moist.
‘No, I couldn’t go,’ Mrs Mathur told Anupurba. ‘I had to stay on in that school ever since. For the sake of that small girl, Noor. Noorjehan.’
‘Where is she now, Mrs Mathur?’
‘Noor works in our Health Centre now,’ Shanta Mathur said. For a moment she was distracted. ‘So many children have moved out of our school since I took over,’ she said, ‘but only a few have achieved social success, as the world understands it. And of those, Noor has been our greatest success story.’
‘What does Noor do?’
‘Noor? She’s an exceptionally bright girl. She took a course in computer applications after her BA degree in Psychology. Now she’s responsible for the computerization of the records in our Health Centre. In addition, she counsels children and parents who visit the Centre. They are usually very depressed when they come to us—that’s only to be expected. But Noor tells them about herself, gives them her own example. She tries to explain that although life has to be a battle for a child with cerebral palsy, all doors are not necessarily closed.’ Mrs Mathur�
�s face glowed.
‘How wonderful!’
‘Come with me to the Health Centre one of these days, Anupurba,’ Mrs Mathur said, ‘You can see the star who struck me. You should see the Centre as well.’
‘I certainly will,’ Anupurba said.
‘Do you want to come today?’
‘Today? Yes, why not? My sons will return late from school today.’
‘Then I’ll ask someone to take you there.’
Mrs Mathur closed her lunch box and put it aside. She drank some water out of her bottle, opened her purse and took out a couple of tablets and swallowed them. She took her bifocal glasses out of a soft black case and started wiping them with her sari. Papers were heaped on her table. She would probably have to begin work now.
Anupurba rose to go. Classes would begin again soon after the lunch break. As she was about to leave, she paused to ask, as though remembering something, ‘How long did it take you to set up this school?’
‘Set up the school?’ Mrs Mathur repeated, ‘I think we are a work in progress. All my plans are still plans; my dreams are yet to take shape. And until that happens, how can I say the school has been set up?’
‘That’s true. But it must have taken you quite a while to sort things out.’
‘Yes, it took seven or eight months just to get the place cleaned up. You should have seen it then—thorny bushes and stinging nettles everywhere. It wasn’t safe to walk around the compound even in sandals: snakes and lizards were our constant companions. One day we even had a leopard for company.’
‘A leopard?’ Anupurba shivered.
‘Yes. There were thick lantana bushes outside our school compound that bordered a jungle tract. The trees inside were growing wild as well. Remember, this is where Bangalore actually ended then. The leopard had probably strayed in looking for cattle. Who knows?’
Children of A Better God Page 4
