Pallavi - shisha and balliyan

The school shut down for summer and the kids didn’t want to be dispersed. They think it’s not too hot, or the machhars didn’t trouble, the insects didn’t trouble nor did the grass bother. We have two measly fans for a 103 kids and we sit in the open under the trees on the farm. It’s an open -air pathsahaala and then we shut down for a month. Every day around 5 pm I think about the kids and the subconscious feeling that class is going to start and also remember the small nuances of the kids who have creeped into my heart with their individual traits.

One of them has slowly and steadily left an imprint.

This month is and was Mothers day special. I told all the children let’s make cards, you know and honor our mothers who sacrifice everything. The children were enthusiastic and started making cards and painting writing in their new learned English words of love and the little lines that we all know by heart, like Roses are red, eyes are blue. Etc. and lines in Punjabi.

And then they made little flowers, and colored plants and tried to decorate their cards. Some of them, were sheepish because there mothers could not read or write. I counseled them to make the cards and give them, and it was a chance to be nice to them on a day and make them feel special by doing little chores and helping her out in the house.

They did all this and all was forgotten. It was the weekend and on Monday one of the girls came forward. Pallavi, is a young girl who is dyslexic, she has a severe squint and is a hyper girl. Well, surprise, surprise, she had given her mother who is a widow, forsaken by her in-laws a shisha (mirror) and balliyan (earrings). She had broken her earthen piggy bank.

In life, we take things for granted, we also act smug thinking we are know it all’s plus we are the ones who have the right to celebrate these western festivals. In fact, we act pretty condescending towards others. I was guilty of the same. I was teaching them but had forgotten the lesson myself. This young girl humbled me by her gesture and the very fact that she had picked up on all the teachings and actually enacted on them . Doing prayanams, self improvising courses or reading heavy tomes of books and quoting authors and poets did not make me a better person but life and its daily  lessons do.

Infact, vidya comes later , but buddhi comes forth and empathy won that day . A dyslexic gril , who is made fun of, who by sheer rote and repetition was studying and coping with the system taught me love and compassion….