Raising Them Wild and Free
Chaina lives in Raimalpura village with his family
Chaina lives in Raimalpura village with his family
He is married with two kids, a girl and a boy. The girl, Akshita, is 9 years old. She goes to a public school opposite her house. She speaks in her native language, which is hard to decode. Her father did roughly translate this for us though that her classmates in school thought of us as kidnappers who take away children. I wonder if it were the clothes. Women don't generally wear jeans/shirts in the villages.
A lot of our conversations hang mid air with us trying to understand each other. So, it's a lot of guessing and gestures as we walk with her to the nearby fields where her granny is harvesting the mustard crop. She was born to a family of farmers. Her backyard is a field of mustard and wheat crops. The yield from the fields will fund her education and someday perhaps her wedding.
On days when her mother is away, she takes up the responsibilities of the house; helping with the kitchen, making tea, serving, washing vessels, tending to the goats and cows, running errands.
On our first visit to her village, I remember looking at the children sitting about the house doing nothing in particular. It was raining very hard that morning, which meant that her straw house lay in the centre of a pool that made access difficult. The house is small and movement restricted because of rain. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. There was a sense of stillness in the air.
The little boy, Priyanshu, all of 6 years old, picks up a sharp knife and starts peeling raw mangoes. And with great ease too. We look at him, with our hearts in our mouth. He is too young for it, we think in our heads. But that's how they learn here. The idea of fear is quite different from what it is in the cities perhaps.
The boundaries of the house for the children extend beyond the walls. They roam about the entire village, barefeet, without supervision or an adult to accompany them. They know everyone who lives there. Everyone knows them.
They also share a special relationship and comfort with animals. They call their favourite goat Sheroo.
Akshita likes to dance, learn the Hindi language and fight with her brother.
Her mother was married when she was 16 years of age. And had her first child at the age of 18. She enjoyed studying English and Social Studies but once married, she had to leave her studies. Her name is Kamlesh. She wants her daughter to get educated and make something of herself; not get married and waste away her life like she feels she has.
Chaina doesn’t want to get his children into folk dancing. He wants them to study and get a well paying job. But if they insist, he’ll have no choice but to help them, he says.
