K S S Pillai: Amazing bliss of childhood
Desh Bir
The routine on my first entry to a school posed no tantrums to me. I found myself very comfortable, courtesy my two teachers named Urvashi and Annapurna who took special care to ensure that I shouldn’t feel out of place.
I shall always remain beholden to this duo, though I would never recognize them if I were to meet them again. My gunny sack which was my seating mat in the class got a special slot in the teachers’ cupboard as the school closed each day. It was my first alma mater, a school for girls, consciously chosen, since I was only four years instead of six, which was the normal age for initiation to school system.
Later, at the boys’ school, Kangoo, I first came to know of castes and religions. Some boys would refer to others as belonging to the caste of weavers, blacksmiths, carpenters or cobblers. But that happened only when they fell out over some issue in the course of a game during the school recess. There would be a bickering for a moment and yet they would be the same warm chums the next moment.
There was a boy named Karamdeen in my class who was said to be a Gujjar- a tribe that reared buffaloes. They were said to be Muslims. Thus I learnt that there was something called Islam. Karamdin’s father, Umardeen was our milkman. I knew he was just like any other man except that he kept a beard that was usually henna-dyed.
Those days in the 1960’s, quite a few children in the hills came barefoot to school. The hawai chappal was yet to percolate to the hinterland and come into vogue. One found only very simple, locally made shoes or sandals and only the grownups could be seen in formal shoes.
Though a well looked after child, I had borrowed from my peers the habit of taking off my footwear while playing hide and seek or a game of chasing during the recess. Consequently, on two occasions I forgot to put on the footwear after the games were over and lost my favourite and much prized Bata sandals that had cost a good amount of rupees 5.99 , a big sum those days.
Tap water was only something we read about in the Hindi Primer. Water had to be fetched from the deep well or a couple of spring wells called Baulis in earthen pitchers. For our household, this task was done by the peon of my father’s school. Twice, I insisted on having a small pitcher of my own for this purpose and both the times the brittle vessel became a casualty within a week. Resultantly, further pleas were never heard or granted.
Those days, a water-point or Piyau was a common landmark. It was a shelter with a couple of pitchers of drinking water with a mug to dispense water. The daily supplies were executed every morning by a person regularly paid by some local philanthropist. Every fortnight or so , there was an advance notice that the well or the Baulis would be cleaned and treated with Lal Dawai. These were good lessons in selfless service and public hygiene respectively.
No regular barber shop existed in the village-townlet of Kangoo. Haircuts were given by Dasaundhi Ram who visited a sandstone platform around an ancient banyan tree, with his khaki satchel that carried a comb, an ustra, a brush, a pair of scissors and a trimmer which had to be used by plying both the hands. His days of visit were his choice. The only haircut given was the fauji style. We received much reprimand from him, but without any grudge, during the operation haircut, because we would never sit still.
And immediately back home, we were forced to go in for a bath, because mother would say the barber will keep riding your head until you bathe and wash your head. And we believed it without a question!
(The author is a Retired Principal Govt. College, Hoshiarpur-Punjab)
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