The Elephant Chaser's Daughter

It’s an ordinary day in my village. I’m waiting out the scorching afternoon heat, trying to take a nap on the cool cement floor of my grandmother’s house. The stillness all around has lulled my two-year old cousin sister to sleep in the sari cradle that hangs from the wooden rafter in the centre of the room. But suddenly, the little girl lets out a wail as her peaceful slumber is broken by the loud, urgent cry of the scrap dealer passing by. “Old steel vessels. Paper. Broken parts,” he repeatedly calls out in a sing song manner that is strangely pleasing to the ear. “Tell him to wait,” my grandmother instructs my brother and hurries to the rear of the house where a pile of discarded materials is heaped. I eagerly follow her and help rummage through the dusty collection of odd items -- a deflated cycle tyre, a dented coffee pot, a broken ladle, my uncle’s rusty shaving kit, several of my used notebooks from college, and a pair of torn rubber slippers. “He weighs the pape...

It's the last day of school for the elementary grades. I fill my steel cup with hot tea and walk over to the tables where the little kindergarteners and first- graders are seated in the dining hall. From the satisfied looks on their faces I can tell that they're thoroughly enjoying the fresh slices of cucumber that they're having for their evening snack. "So are you excited to go home tomorrow?" I ask, settling into the empty chair at the corner of the table. Heads nod in answer and I receive a chorus of a loud, happy 'yes.' But five year old, Keerthika, takes me completely by surprise when she comes over to me and says in her usual soft voice, "I don't want to go home." The inquisitive psychologist in me immediately grows alert. I place an arm around her waist and ask her in a gentle yet concerned tone, "Why don't you want to go home, darling?" I fear I already know what her answer might be. I ...

Hi everyone! I’m really excited to return to blogging. A lot has happened since I last wrote and I look forward to sharing all the news on my life back here in India. After an enrichening journey through college for the past two years, I’m finally in the last semester of my Master’s program in Psychological Counseling and will graduate this May. The friendships and bonds I’ve built at Montfort are a great source of joy.    I’ve found my sense of purpose working with children in distress. I wish to specialize in child and adolescent couseling because of the importance of early intervention in addressing psychological problems. Apart from academics, I spend a lot of time at Shanti Bhavan with my peers and caretakers who are family to me. They constantly encourage me to try harder at the things I set out to do.   While on campus, I love reading bedtime stories for the little pre-schoolers and passing on my knowledge of psychology to the residential caretakers wh...

My Mother, Sarophina If you ever get to meet my mother, Sarophina, you’ll notice the way her accent lugs her attempt to speak English. Each word is calculated and every sentence weighs down with  her determination to get it right. She picked up a little bit of the language when she was  working as a housemaid abroad. My mother gave up on education at the age of fourteen. She was forced to join the family’s local business as a liquor hunter. At dusk, she would pick up a fairly large rubber tube and set out to fetch liquor from sellers. Dressed in her older brother’s faded khaki shorts and pants she looked like a little ruffian who meant business. But the danger of getting caught by the police always followed her like a shadow. Her charm and cunning ways at full display, older men could not turn her down. “It’s the way you approach people and speak to them that makes the difference,” she’d tell me in later years. My mother has been good at imparting advic...

My Father Hopes of a good future for me were planted the day my father – Appa as I call him -- decided to send me away to a boarding school called Shanti Bhavan. Despite my mother’s ardent protests and pleadings that she would raise me on her own, even if it meant begging on the streets, he was adamant that I study in a school that he believed would offer me a brighter future. I don’t know how a man who hasn’t had any formal education and had never seen professional success could foresee and trust that an education could save me from the poverty-stricken life he and his family had endured for generations.   Others in my family say that my father wanted to get rid off me because I was born a girl child, and hence he didn’t hesitate to give me up to strangers who came looking for children to admit into their school.  Upon my birth he had openly spoken about throwing me into the nearby garbage pit. Whatever his reasons might have been, I am grateful that he had t...

Seeds of the Datura plant My village, Thattaguppe, has a history as wild and bitter as the poisonous seeds of the Datura plant. My own past was borne from it. My grandmother loves to narrate the story of my birth. Seeing me the way I am today, she thinks my story has a happy ending. She was the one who sternly scolded my father for rejecting me when he found out that I was born a girl. She often tells me with pride, “When your father wanted to throw you in the garbage pit, I gave him a piece of my mind.” When a girl child is born, no kerosene lamps are lit to brighten the hut, no coconut sweets are distributed to the neighbors, and no meat is cooked to celebrate. Instead, there are only tears and quiet whispers on how to get rid of the baby. It was not uncommon for the midwife to be bribed with goodies of all sorts to secretly carry out the unspeakable – murder. A girl child is considered a burden to the family. She brings no wealth and the parents have to give dowry ...

Men crowding over the coffin of a man killed during a fight over water I   have always been a lover of stories. Stories fascinate me. I grew up with stories. As a little child, I chased after stories with fierce yearning. Stories were not hard to find in my home. Men and women who came to my maternal grandmother to buy liquor brought with them numerous stories of all kinds. Some days I’d hear stories of landlords taken into custody by the local   panchayat   (governing body in the village) for beating their coolies almost to death for not having repaid the money they borrowed. On other days I’d hear stories of young girls having eloped, cattle having been stolen, fire breaking out among the huts on the top of the hill, a religious ceremony being held to celebrate the coming of age of a girl, a young boy  drowning himself in the lake, a man killed during a fight over water, and on and on. In their drunken stupor, some customers even boldly confessed tales o...