June 2016 ...
Village children forced into a poor quality, disconnected
schooling causes many to get sacrificed along the way.
And this child had fates ranged against him, a complicated and
tragic series of events, including a father who was murdered, and a mother
abandoning the children later, that left him and his sister effectively
orphaned and care of an assetless grandmother. Eashwaramma. We were the neighbours, and we
did what we could, in our best understanding.
Sasi grew up with no role model, and no parental disciplining
and as adolescence came on there was an deep seated rebellion that we never
sensed. Also, a neighbor and a grandmother can only do so much disciplining and
without our realizing it, his wilfulness had grown to vast dimensions.
A year ago we had put him into a good government
residential school, through a friend in the government, fearing his going
astray in adolescence. But it was English medium and he could not cope. Having
joined him we told him to just complete the year, given the trouble and expense
we had all been put to. But he stopped simply eating, went on a hunger strike,
and the headmaster fearing health consequences, sent him back. That was maybe
his initiation into the power he could wield. The tired grandmother ran around
to the old school and pleaded many times and got him readmitted there. By then
we were not in the village all the time, being partly in Madras, and also
missed the nuances.
Over the year he kept getting more difficult. But to all of us
in the village, he was the small boy we had always known, and given an
essential charm and innocence which also was uniquely his, we alternately
upbraided and pampered him. Given his peculiarly deprived status, everyone in
the village also had a softness towards him.
But then he also started raging against his grandmother. In
anger he would hit her also. Maybe hidden anger and angst against life, and
against abandonment by his parents, was getting focused on the only family
member he saw around him. Then he stopped going to school. He ran away one day
with the milk vendor and started
working in their center. He was promised 500/- a day. There were some
issues there that we have not got to the bottom of, and we were told by people
of that village that the milk vendor’s family there needed a kidney transplant
for their child and that was a motive in luring Sasi away. Anyway they were
pampering him, and he switched loyalties to them totally. The grandmother
finally went to that village with some people from our village, and after
making no headway there, gave a police complaint about his having been taken
away there. In return the boy, under guidance from them, gave a written letter
to the police saying that he was there by choice, and did not want to return to
his grandmother at all and that she beats him.
When he was finally brought back to the village he was on full
misbehavior, hitting his grandmother, demanding the best foods, and knocking
down the food if he disliked it. And kept threatening to go back to the
milk centre. He had also picked up some unsavoury adult ways of talking back
and playing up.
There was fear that he would come go away to the milk
centre and come to physical harm there, and Eashwaramma called up and told me
to keep him in Chennai. So he came down with Varalu, and had a good time
for a week. With his essential charm he made friends with the neighbours, and
the watchmen around. He went to the beach and with his talents ringed many
toys. He helped me collect many medicinal herbs in the neighbourhood. As some
women came from the village to learn screen printing, he joined them. He
had a good time, while other children were at school !
I had been looking desperately for a school where he could settle down, where there was also a good work component along with studies. There was nothing working out in AP, and a good friend running an excellent rural school in TN was recommended to us by many as the ideal place for him. Language would be an issue, but there were Telugu teachers there, and as the school had many strengths whereby he could pursue his interests even apart from studies, we sent him there to try. I made the mistake maybe, of telling him that I would send him and he could see if he liked it and stay on if he did. Giving him such a liberal offer was obviously in retrospect foolish.
Sasi came to Chennai again. The next day our friend Saravana Perumal
came with two new sets of clothes as gifts for him to make his going more
cheerful. I ran around late at night buying him odds and ends – a watch,
toiletries etc. Vignesh, our friend, and who had also become his great friend,
offered to go with him on the overnight trip to help him get adjusted. There my
friend who runs the school took him on with complete commitment. On the first
day Sasi called me up and informed me that he did not like it and would return.
I told him that he would not, and would stay for a week. He started shouting at
me demanding to know if I had not promised him that he could decide after a
day. I told him that I now demanded a week, and given the time and money I had
invested in him he could do this. He refused and told me he would run away. I
told him to do what he pleased and hung up. My friend who runs the school put
him with the art teacher who spoke Telugu and asked him to stay with him. She
said he need not study and could simply do painting and modeling.
He kept saying he would return with Vignesh who had accompanied
him, and Vignesh actually extended his stay by another few days to help
Sasi acclimatize. My friend, a seasoned educationist, tried everything.
Gentleness and persuation, and also an iron hand. Sasi started his hunger
strike, and she put him in a room and said he would be unlocked when he wished
to eat. He started breaking the door, and was given a hard slap. Then he was
given food and sent with kind words and advice to work with the art
teacher.
Then he was told that Vignesh would need to leave the next day,
and he could stay till I went down in the weekend. Thet night he slinked down
to Vignesh’s side and took money to enable his running away. At that my friend
caught him and confisicated his bags, thinking that that would retain him. The
next day to test him, she told him that Vignesh would leave shortly, and before
people could respond, he ran away to the main road and thumbed a lift and left
to the town, penniless.
I was informed on phone, and was frozen. I told Nagesh who was
also stunned into immobility. But the police there was alerted, and I called up
Piyush in Salem for help, and also Sridhar also who was there then by a stroke
of luck. Sridhar left for the busstop immediately. Sasi was nabbed at the
busstop where he seems to have spun a story of having come with his father and
lost him when they were changeing buses. And he had even got ticket money
from the kind police constable who believed him.
At the police station, into the might, Sasi despite all
entreties refused to return to the school, maybe sure that we would never let
him out again. Nagesh called him up and promised that he would leave
Chennai shortly and come there, and for him to please go to the school. He
refused. As a police station cannot retain a child at night, he was moved into
a neighbouring girls hostel for the night. The girls there took care of him
well and fed him pooris and potatoes ! Nagesh took a car and left on an
overnight drive to there. When I called him up I could hear Sasi chattering
with someone in the background unfazed. The police station then demanded that
the family come to claim him. Eashwaramma was called and told to make the
8 hour trip down from the village, and Chandra was asked to accompany her. They
reached late night yesterday, and after he was released the drive down to
Chennai happened.
Sasis was unfazed by the infinite troubles he caused, the vast
expenses that have been incurred, the stress a school has been put to. He
simply sees it from his point that we demanded he stay on for a week when the
initial ‘agreement’ was that he will stay for a day and decide.
- He then asked me for some porcelean dolls he
had ringed in the beach as he was leaving. When yelled at him asking if he
understood what he had us all through, he said, 'But it was my money I used.'
He was completely self absorbed.
My friend, with her vast experience with children, sees him at
utterly hellbent on only having his way. I have realized that he has scant
regard for anyone putting themselves out for him. Sridhar has advised me to lay
off, saying that handling , this is not within my capability, and for my sake,
and also for Sasi’s, to lay off. I know, and yet.
A child is on the verge of ruin. Eashwaramma has lived thro’ her
son’s murder, brought up the two grandchildren singly, and now faces losing her
grandson this way.
Aug 2017
Eashwaramma as grandmother, never gave up. She took him to all the vaids. She send him on the Sabarimalai pilgrimage at impossible expenses. She continues showering love. But he is currently lost to us. He is simply hanging around. Neither going to school, nor to work.
I simply watch ...
Sasi has rejoined school. Writing his exams. Eighth class.
He dropped out for a year, and as he grappled with his past , and adolescent angst, everyone was in a daze. Everyone in the village had counselled with deep concern and love as only a village can. This parentleess child. Anita had prayed to all gods and promised offerings. Everyone had.
The local primary school teacher, newly appointed, was the final magic touch that worked. He saw the child hanging around, had long chats with him, and finally took him to the school on his scooter, and admitted him. "You just go to school. I will see you through your tenth. That is my promise."
He came home in the morning orning resplendent in his new bag.
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