caravan. Rumours had spread about him — that Master, the teacher, was carrying bombs and a pistol in the cloth bag slung over his handlebars while in actual fact it was only his food and air pump for the bicycle tires.
Chachaji and his group continued to help Muslims escape the avengers and robbers. In a futile attempt to dissuade him from his work, some of his enemies threatened to kill my siblings and me. One day he was returning from Neehr, a predominantly Muslim village, when a gunshot rang through the air. A bullet whizzed past, missing Chachaji by inches.
India was turning its back on the collective dream of the freedom fighters. The English sahibs departed, leaving sahibdom behind. Elected and unelected officials alike began to behave like the rulers of old. Instead of a healthy challenge to authority, sycophancy gained currency. Chachaji’s rebellious streak remained, and he showed it often. One day the chief minister of Punjab, Chachaji’s old friend Darbara Singh, decided to visit our village school unannounced. One of his functionaries showed up at our khooh looking for Chachaji, who was working with us in the fields. The chief minister wanted to see Chachaji at the school, the functionary said. Chachaji thought for a moment and said to the functionary, “Tell my friend I am busy making a living. I am not a rich man. I need to finish this work today. But I am happy to receive him here.” So the chief minister came by to see Chachaji on his way to his next destination. The green wheat crop, less than a foot tall, was turning and twisting in the cool breeze. After the minister left, we got right back to weeding it. I learned from Chachaji that freedom and equality are like crops: they must be diligently weeded, watered and fertilized.
Chachaji was also a voracious reader of Punjabi and Urdu books and of the Tribune, the prominent English daily that Mahatma Gandhi had once called the most important newspaper in North India. Our father had a small library at home that included English titles such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and many Urdu titles I could never make out. His Punjabi books, of which there were many, included works by the premier Punjabi novelist, Nanak Singh, and the Punjabi translation of Gorky’s The Mother. By the end of grade six, I had devoured most of the Punjabi titles in Chachaji’s collection. My facility with the language was recognized when I received the award of a book of Punjabi plays at a public function in the Dosanjh School, in the presence of hundreds of people from the surrounding villages. I still needed to work on my Hindi, however.
6
ONCE BHAJI AND I got home from school, we would eat quickly, change into our khooh clothes and walk over to help with the work. I did all the chores except ploughing and levelling the land, for which I was considered too young. As the sugarcane grew taller, we tied it together in bunches, using the semi-green leaves in the middle as rope. Our constant sweating cooled us down in the windless confines of the tall crop. In the evening, when we took a bath in the chalha , the water would sting the numerous cuts the sugarcane leaves had made in our skin.
Tying up the sugarcane was difficult, but nothing compared to harvesting the wheat or weeding the corn crop — the weeds were needed for cattle fodder — on hot, humid days. The difficulty of these tasks was, in fact, the stuff of legend. Folklore had it that, afraid of these very chores, the sons of small landholders would leave home to become sadhus , ascetics who renounce worldly relationships and possessions, meditate, and live on alms.
We harvested the wheat manually, squatting with a sickle in one hand. Chachaji, Tayaji, Bhaji and I raced against each other to finish our rows. I was no slouch, but I was the youngest of the four; I won only occasionally, thanks to the others letting me do so. Once harvested and dried, the wheat was strewn over a flattened surface in the field, specially prepared for separating the husk from the grains. The oxen were hitched to a falha , a rectangular flatbed made of branches from thorny hardwood trees covered with dried wheat stems, held together by dried bamboo and rope. The oxen dragged the falha over the harvested wheat, crushing it. New bales were continually added, and over a couple of days the wheat under the falha and the hooves of the oxen would turn into silky golden shreds. We took turns following the falha to ensure the oxen remained on the circular path. The wheat circle also had to be dug up and turned over constantly, to ensure no long stalks remained uncrushed.
Once the wheat was completely shredded, we piled it into a long, straight mound. It was now ready for the husks to be separated. We accomplished that by raking the shreds and throwing them into the air. The wind carried the husks a few feet away while the grains fell back on the mound. The work continued until the husks were completely isolated. Following that, cattle and buffalo were walked over any uncrushed ears until all we had left was grain. The grain went into jute bags that were sewn up and taken home.
Any surplus we took to the grain market at Phagwara. Most years we had enough for market even after the portions that went to the Dalits, the naais and the jhirs who helped our family throughout the year. The husks were added to cattle fodder and then stored in a koop , a dome built from dried cotton and wheat stalks. The koop kept the husks dry and was strong enough to withstand strong winds.
Farming work claimed much of Bhaji’s and my time. Every now and then I would disappear into the village to play marbles with the other kids, but Chachaji would send my brother to find me and bring me back to the khooh . I never wanted Chachaji to come searching himself, as that meant punishment. Many kids, even from families poorer than ours, got more time to play. Bhaji and I did steal ourselves some fun, though, at the samadh (mausoleum) of a Muslim saneen , or saint. At the end of the wheat harvest, the mela was held near the mosque for three days. Qawwals who sang like the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came from all over India and Pakistan, and their performances filled the nights. Bhaji sometimes attended the mela with Biraji. They would watch wrestling matches and jugglers, take in some qawwali and then buy sweet jalebi with the eight annas Biraji usually carried in his pocket. By the time they got home they would be happy and full, with lots of jalebi left over for the rest of the family to enjoy.
If Bhaji and I made the school field hockey teams, we were allowed time for that as well. I made the team twice, though mine was a mediocre performance on the ground. Those days, cricket was the big sport for the affluent. Field hockey was for the masses; that made us like it even more. We had another reason to like hockey too. A player named Balbir Singh Dosanjh had captained the Indian field hockey team to a gold medal in the 1948 Olympics. (It would be the team’s first of three consecutive Olympic golds.) Balbir was from Puadhra, the village from which our ancestors had moved over four centuries earlier. His face adorned the cover of many a magazine and the front page of many newspapers, and Chachaji would buy these and show them to us with genuine pride. These days, Balbir makes his home in the Greater Vancouver area.
WE BOTH LOVED and feared Chachaji. One day he returned early from Phagwara and found Bhaji and me at the khooh , fighting and calling each other names. I had filled my brother’s shoes with fresh cattle dung, and he had rubbed it into my long, knotted hair. Chachaji flew into a rage. Picking up a stick, he unleashed a barrage of blows. Bhaji got the first one, but I got most of what came next. An eternity seemed to pass before the beating stopped. Sobbing, I set about washing the dung off my clothes and out of my hair. Chachaji headed home without looking back.
Chachaji could never bring himself to say he was sorry, except for once, after he’d slapped me. I was angry at the slap, because I felt I had done nothing wrong. In protest, I refused to eat or drink anything all day — a hunger strike of sorts. Chachaji came to my room before I went to bed, embraced me and asked me to eat my meal. All was forgiven. That was the only time I remember him hugging me. He was an Indian peasant who had grown up in the early twentieth century: not the hugging sort.
During my days at the Dosanjh School, there was a short-lived scheme to provide powdered milk to students. The milk was poured into big containers of boiling water and sugar. Each of us had to stand in a queue, drink a glass of lukewarm milk, run to the water pump, wash the glass and carry it back
