BENGALURU: There was a wedding in our village once. I was with a group of children. The point of sitting together was to play pranks. You could place the beard of a coconut on somebody’s cap, or put pebbles in somebody’s pocket or pinch someone without his knowing who did it. When alms were distributed, some boys held out their hands. I followed suit without thinking. Not that I thought I was doing anything wrong. When you are young, you love to have money clinking in your hands. I came home excitedly with the two annas I was given.
I ran to Aai to give her the money as though I had earned it with my own labour. Priests study for twelve years to learn the intricacies of rituals. Alms are their right and reward. People like us should work and earn money. That brings us respect. Aai said, ‘Where did you get this money?’ I said, ‘During the vangnishchay.’ Aai’s face fell. She looked deeply embarrassed.
Did she think I had held my hand out for money because we had become poor? Or that the family priest offered me the money out of pity? Normally, if a boy from a well-to-do family held his hand out, the family priest would say, ‘Don’t be silly. Aren’t you from the Dongre family?’
Why had the priest not said that to her son? Surely it was because he pitied me. There is nothing more humiliating than being the object of somebody’s pity. Aai’s mind was whirring with many such thoughts. But she did not say a word to me. She just stared into space. ‘Aai, why don’t you take the money? I didn’t steal it,’I pleaded. Aai said, ‘Shyam, we may be poor, but we work for our living. We are not priests. They have no means. They have no lands. They only do religious work. Alms are their only income.’
‘Pandurang bhatji is so rich. Why should he accept alms? He lends money on interest. He has fields.
What kind of a priest is he then?’ ‘The wrong kind,’ Aai said. ‘In the old days, if a priest had surplus in Pandav Pratap gave a lot of wealth to a priest, who gave it away on his way home. Rishis taught their disciples free of charge. So don’t ever hold your hand out for alms again. We are supposed to give to the world, not take from it.’
‘Aai gave the two annas away to Balu, a poor servant. Friends, the more we take from the world, the more we grow accustomed to bowing and scraping and the more pathetic and dependent we become. We look abjectly to others for support. It is a sin to demean ourselves. But it is also a sin to think too highly of ourselves. We must not become dependent on others. European children are taught to be independent from a young age. They consider it below their dignity to live off their parents’ money. I’ve heard a story about President Hoover’s son. True or false, this is how it goes.
When Hoover became president of America, the wealthiest country in the world, his thirteen-year-old son was working on a construction site as a mason’s assistant. The boy is said to have fallen off the building and died. Sorrowful though Hoover was, he said, ‘My son died teaching the country the importance of independence and the dignity of labour.’ (Extracted from Marathi classic written by Shyamachi Aai, translated by Shanta Gokhale, with permission from Penguin Random House)