Prologue

April 2, 1984, Village Kundyan, Punjab, India

As the night breaks, hazy mud houses take form; a lone figure lying in a cot stirs, gets up, and walks inside a hut. The figure will reemerge, holding a tumbler of water in one hand, slouching down the unpaved lane, disappearing toward the fields. The morning will yawn, stretching its limbs with the florid orange growing from the east. More cots will squeak around the shacks, and more figures move to traverse the same path. The earthen stoves burning dung cakes will come to life in front of the mud huts while the cacophony of shouts begins for youngsters to wake up.

People in dirty clothes will start walking out of the shantytown—singly, in pairs, or small groups. They will pass by the brick house at the end and turn left to the main village, where the women will clean barns for Jats all morning, hauling away cattle dung for scraps of food. The men will toil, helping Jat farmers in the fields for small sums.

At noon, the women will return, carrying small vessels containing cooked lentils and vegetables doled out by the Jat ladies. Seeing their sisters and mothers return, the scantily clad children will abandon their play and run to the huts for lunchtime. Their empty stomachs will not balk at the unusual texture and taste of the vessels’ mixed-up curry concoctions. A few scrawny cows, buffalos, goats, and sheep tethered around the shacks will grunt and bleat for attention.

This is the Keera¹ basti, the shantytown of Kundyan where the Keeras live. It is no different from other Keera bastis of Punjab, set up on the southwest outskirts of the main villages. The Keeras are the untouchables, the outcasts of the Indian caste hierarchy, outside the four Hindu varnas. They are neither allowed to live in the main villages, nor permitted into Jat homes, nor to eat from the same kits the Jats eat. They carry their bowls and tumblers with them when they go to a Jat home and eat sitting on the ground at the door.

The upper caste Jats live in the main village. Jats are the farming community, and they own all land. Their brick houses are spacious, often containing two to three rooms, separate kitchens, walled-in courtyards, and barns for the cattle. Men work in the fields with hired help from the Keeras in the basti. The Jat women take care of the household chores, milk buffalos, churn milk in the morning, clean, launder, cook, and spin yarn.

Besides Jats, a few other castes also live in the main village. They belong to the broad caste category of Sudra, the lowest of the four varnas of the Hindu Shastras. Sudras provide various services to the Jat community and live in the main village, though not amid the Jats. They are allowed into Jat homes, and the Jats do not mind sharing their eating utensils.

A well-traveled, wide, paved road separates the main village of Kundyan from its Keera basti. Except for one brick house, the houses in the basti are one-room mud huts, two or three of which share a small, open courtyard that houses their earthen stoves. Twenty-some of these shacks are spread along an unpaved street, which at the end splits at right angles to left and right. The brick house stands at the corner where the main lane turns toward the village. The house is a basti oddity. Its boundary wall covers the main house and the cattle barn. The house has one spacious bedroom, a guest room, a veranda, a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a flush toilet in one corner of the yard. It has a metal door toward the basti and another double door through the barn that opens to the street to the main town. The brick house exudes a feeling as if it has been dragged here to exile from the main village.

Very few Keera children go to school. Most drop out after a year or two of primary school; rarely does anyone finish high school. Keera girls are discouraged from going at all. Once in a blue moon, one may encounter a Keera woman with a high school certificate. Bindo, an occupant of the lone brick house of the basti, is one such exception.

Part 1

Only mothers can think of the future – because they give birth to it in their children.

Chapter 1

Jaggi woke up at the first clinking in the kitchen. The six-year-old was excited; it was his first day of school. His mother, Bindo, had already set water to heat on the mud stove. Jaggi took no time to brush his teeth and take a bath. He quickly ate a thickly buttered flatbread with yogurt.

Jaggi was thrilled; whenever he passed by the school he had watched with awe the children playing inside. Now he’d have the chance to be there with his friend Himmat all day long and play marbles. It made him giddy with anticipation. Bindo smiled at her son’s excitement.

After eating, Jaggi was ready for Bindo to tie a turban on his head. She combed his hair and rolled it into a small bun. She took out the long soft cloth and folded it lengthwise into a long two-inch-wide strip with the help of Jaggi’s tiny hands. It was both of their first time tying a turban. Bindo never needed a turban as a woman, but her little boy had to be dressed no less than any other in school. Jaggi anchored one end of the cloth with his left hand while Bindo carefully stacked one round over the other around his head, turning the fabric into a beautiful turban, befitting his striking handsomeness. She stepped back to admire her handiwork.

How handsome my son looks, with that face like the moon! Bindo quickly moved her gaze away, lest her captivated eye caused harm to him. She had an urge to put a soot-mark on his forehead with her pinky to ward off the evil eyes. But she did not, not wanting the other children to have any reason to mock her boy.

His nose was just like his grandfather’s—the thought brought her the memory of her father’s face. His eyes were certainly like hers, and Bindo was very proud of her eyes. And why wouldn’t she be? “You have gazelle-like eyes, like those of Dimple Kapadia,” she was often told. Women from the villages did not go to the cinemas without a male company. And so, as soon as they married, Bindo’s first demand from her husband Teja was to take her to the cinema to watch Bobby, a Dimple Kapadia film.

She blushed when she thought of a match for Jaggi’s chin: It reminded her of her cousin, Baldev, who she held as a standard of handsomeness. She had harbored feelings toward Baldev that she knew she shouldn’t have.

“Wh-wh-what are you loo-loo-looking at, maa?” Jaggi’s question broke her trance.

“I was thinking how handsome my son looks,” she said, caressing his cheeks. Jaggi’s face reddened, and he lowered his gaze.

Himmat, a boy in class three, walked through the door to take Jaggi to his first day of school. Himmat was from a Jheor family, a low caste Sudra, living on the Jat side of the road.

Bindo took the small, handcrafted cotton tote bag off the peg in the wall. The bag contained a small wooden slate and a clump of clay to coat the slate with, an inkpot, a reed pen, a little book of Punjabi alphabet, and his lunch—an omelet rolled in a thickly buttered flatbread, wrapped in a small kitchen rag.

Bindo hung the bag on Jaggi’s shoulder and sent him off with Himmat. She stood in the door watching the boys walk away, her heart pitter-pattering in sync with Jaggi’s tiny steps. Her son was going to school in new clothes, sandals, and a new bag on his shoulder. Her eyes were gleaming with pride.

Jaggi was her only child, her life. “You shouldn’t get pregnant again,” the doctor had advised her after a complication with Jaggi’s birth. It was difficult to digest his words, as if he were declaring her womanhood invalid. However, as time passed, she reconciled. After God’s such handsome gift, who needs more children?

Bindo was born into a Keera family. Her father, Soma, had finished school till class eight. A constitutional provision that eased outcasts to get government jobs enabled Soma to secure a security guard post with a bank. The position paid modestly, but it ensured that his wife and two daughters did not have to clean cattle barns or do other humble jobs for the higher castes. A consistent, regular income and his girls’ freedom from the menial work was congenial for their schooling. In a way, Soma was ahead of his time; he wanted both of his daughters to go to school.

It wasn’t easy, though; he had to overcome much resistance. He had to deal with comments from the community, and his wife was dead set against sending the girls to school. “What is the school going to give them? In the end, they will bear children and cook bread like the rest,” she argued. However, Soma was too determined to be swayed.

Unfortunately, Bitti, the older one, did not show much interest in studies; she hated being referred to by her caste in school. She dropped out after class five and was married three years later, barely fifteen at the time.

Bindo, on the other hand, loved books and did well in her studies. But her liking of books did not bode well with her mother, Piaro, who wanted Bindo to do all the household chores. As Bindo advanced in her classes, Piaro’s interference increased, becoming emotionally manipulative. She would feign sickness and fall ill when Bindo had to work on her school assignments. She would demand Bindo’s full attention, making her cook certain things or heating water for her to take a bath. “Do you know how I took care of my mother when I was your age?”

But the more Piaro tried to interfere with Bindo’s studies, the more determined Bindo became to succeed. There was a stop near her school where two Jat girls boarded the bus for college. Bindo was fascinated by them and would stop working to look at them get on or off the bus. She, too, wanted to dress up like them and get on the bus, carrying a bag of books. Frequently, she dreamed of being in college or a position meant only for the educated.

After Bindo finished high school, Soma broached the subject with Piaro of sending Bindo to college.

“What? Are you going to sell me to pay for her college?” she snapped. Piaro was beside herself. “Stop that rubbish right now!” she thundered. “The girl finished high school, and that’s enough. No need for any more of that nonsense. Do you know any other girl from the basti going to college? And when will you find her a husband?” Bindo was seventeen, fair-skinned, tall, and beautiful, and Piaro could not bear the thought of her roaming among the Jat boys, who considered low caste women their collective property.

Soma could see his wife’s viewpoint; they were barely making it with his meager salary at the bank, and a college-going woman would need money for decent clothes, books, tuition, and other expenses. How would he provide for all that? Where would he find a matching Keera husband for his college-educated girl?

Piaro’s outrage did not surprise Bindo, but she couldn’t understand why her father sided with her mother. She was proud of her father and had always counted on his support. She desperately wanted to go to college and get an admirable job. It did not excite her just to get married, produce children and cook meals for them all. ‘Why do I have to live the same life my mother and her mother before her lived? Why doesn’t she want me to be independent? Why is she so jealous of me?’

One day, disappointed, she sat her father down for a discussion. “Baau ji, why don’t you support me anymore?” she asked. Soma explained their meager financial resources.

“I will buy used books and never bother you for fancy clothes,” she pleaded.

“It doesn’t work like that, bete,” Soma said. “If I send you to college, I wouldn’t want you to be any less than your classmates. And bete, where will I find a suitable husband for my college-educated daughter?”

“Who wants to get married?” Bindo snapped. “I want to be independent and not depend on someone else for my livelihood.”

“That kind of talk is total nonsense, and you know that. Do you believe society will let you or us live in peace if you stay unmarried?”

Soma shared other reservations about working women; they made a tiny percentage in his bank or other workplaces he visited. “Their male coworkers don’t treat them as equals or show the respect these ladies deserve. And these Jat girls who go to college; how many you think will work in offices? Most just aim to get a good husband, and that’s about it.”

Bindo talked about being a nurse or a teacher, but all these required years in college, and Soma could not afford it. She didn’t know what to do or whom to talk to. No one in her education-deprived neighborhood sympathized with her; why did she need more education than she already had? Bindo understood; it was the end of her dream.

Bindo was determined not to depend on her husband for survival. What if I have three kids and something happens to him? Who will take care of my children and me? She thought of learning a trade, but what? The available agriculture and allied activities didn’t pay enough; none needed a high degree of skill or specialization.

Bindo went to see Parkash, the village tailor. Tailoring was Parkash’s hereditary occupation. He had two daughters and a teenage son. The daughters were married off, and the son was helping him in his trade.

“Uncle ji, how much money can one make from tailoring?” Bindo asked

Parkash smiled.

“Bete, you know tailoring is our familial occupation, and this is all I know. My son will take over the trade after me, as I did after my father, and he after his. We are not rich, but we never had to worry about our livelihood. How much money you make depends on where you live and how good and hardworking you are. I believe tailors living in cities make much more than we do.”

Parkash’s answer satisfied Bindo. Being a seamstress was not her idea of getting a job for the educated, but it could afford her the independence she sought.

Bindo asked Parkash if he could train her to be a seamstress.

“Why not, puttar ji? Ask Soma to talk to me, and we will get you going.”

Bindo talked to her father, and within a day, she was training with Parkash.

Parkash used part of his house as a shop. He was busy, and he had an employee to help him in addition to his teenage son. Bindo liked the work and quickly got good at it. After two months, Parkash started to pay her. The pay was modest, but Bindo pursued the confidence to be independent more than she desired the money.

Soma started searching for a suitable husband for Bindo, and two years later, he found Teja.

Bindo was not thrilled to learn her future spouse had not gone past primary school, but what Soma told about Teja was intriguing. Teja and his father farmed someone else’s land as sharecroppers. Being a farmer and hiring his labor was honorable for a Keera, even as a sharecropper.

“Teja has a brick house, the best in the entire village, not just the basti!” Soma told Bindo with pride in his eyes. Bindo trusted her father’s judgment. She was excited to live in a lovely house, different from the four mud walls she grew up in.

Her mother’s argument still rattled Bindo. My children will go to college and not be denied like I am, she resolved.

Like all the brides of her time, Bindo did not see Teja before their wedding. During the holy Granth’s ceremonial circling, she walked with her straightest posture to compare Teja’s height with her own and couldn’t figure out if he was taller than her. He would fit below Baldev’s chin, she thought. The thin red dupatta pulled over Bindo’s eyes was like a filter through which she saw everything, including her new husband’s face. It wasn’t until the ride to the in-laws that she saw him openly. Bindo sat in the back seat with her lady companion and Teja next to the driver. He is good enough, she decided.

Her first night in Kundyan had followed a grueling day of wedding ceremonies and a long line of ladies who came to see the new bride. When she was finally in the bedroom, she wanted to sleep but was afraid of offending Teja and stayed awake, waiting. She had heard so many stories from her friends and had no clue what to expect. One had told of her husband, who expected her to initiate everything because it would signify his weakness if he had to ask. Another told her how they had stayed awake all night, making love. Then the one whose husband came in drunk and forced himself on her, and the one whose husband was so nervous he couldn’t even perform.

Finally, the door squeaked open. Someone entered the room, closing the door behind. Bindo was sitting on the bed, still dressed in her wedding clothes. He slowly walked closer, and she waited to hear him say something, but nothing. She scooted over a little, and he gently sat beside her. After a couple of minutes, he put his hand on her shoulder.

“Do you want to lie down? You must be tired,” he said. Teja’s compassion put her mind at ease as he lay back, softly pulling her with him. They straightened on the bed with him lying on his back and resting her head on his shoulder. He took her free hand, put it on his chest, and tenderly moved his hand over her arm. A long time seemed to pass, and he was still gently stroking her arm. She became more comfortable each minute and began to doze off. Then he said something bizarre that she couldn’t grasp: “Bindo, do you know Chandgi Ram opened an Akhara in Delhi?”

Bindo did not know who Chandgi Ram was. What kind of foreplay is this? He must be nervous, she thought. Then he was quiet for a couple of minutes, still stroking her arm. “Bindo, we will have two sons, two strong sons.”

A son and a daughter, she wanted to say but kept quiet and slowly dozed off in his arm.

Teja turned out to be a good husband, though Bindo did not like his non-confrontational nature. He spoke only when there was no other way. But he was a loving and hardworking man.

Three years later, when Jaggi was born, Teja confessed.

“I’m glad I have an educated wife. I know nothing about schooling and would not have known what to do with a child,” he said.

“I’m sure you would have sent him to school,” Bindo answered lightly.

“Yes, I would’ve, but I wouldn’t know how to help him with his studies and what to do when he finished. Now I’m not worried; you will know what to do.”

“I don’t know all the answers, but I’m sure of one thing,” Bindo said.

“What is that?”

“Our son will go to university, and nothing will stop him—nothing!” she said with a conviction that made Teja’s face glow.

Today, sending Jaggi to school was the proudest moment in Bindo’s life. She stood watching the boys until they disappeared behind the small hillock, and in those few moments, she saw Jaggi grow up to be collegiate. My son will go to university, and nothing will stop him—nothing!