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Growing up with animals meant that we cared for them like our own children. They gave me so much love and taught me so much. Few animals can match the loyalty of a buffalo. Either Ammi or I, being the eldest, would bathe the buffaloes, often in the river, sometimes outside our home by the hand pump. That day, Ammi was bathing them, one by one. She was scrubbing one of them, while a few feet away, the remaining Herculean beasts, awaiting their turn, were tied up with ropes which were knotted loosely enough for their comfort and yet tightly enough for a bit of stability to rein them in. You could see how much trust there was between the animals and their keepers. One of them managed to shake its head enough to unleash itself completely and began to walk away, deciding it was time for a stroll. I don’t exactly remember which one of my younger brothers it was—perhaps Faizi, perhaps Almas, maybe Shamas, probably Shamas because he is the youngest; he was crawling rapidly towards the buffalo, like any child would, attracted as he was to the wide-eyed animal. The buffalo itself was speeding towards the spot where she would be tied up later, once Ammi was done bathing all the children. My brother, gurgling with joy, came in her way, right in front of her feet. She braked her hooves and stopped in her tracks instantly, not unlike a racing car coming to a screeching halt in order to avoid running a pedestrian over, and mooed loudly to attract attention. The noise immediately made Ammi turn around and run at the speed of lightning to pick her baby up. Had it not been for the intelligence and the loyal love of the animal, my brother might have been completely crushed to a pulp.
6Schooldays
On the way to my primary school was a Montessori school, where the children of our village’s well-educated parents went to study. Many of my friends and I dreamt of studying there but we went to the local government school which we simply called sarkari school. We did not have traditional desks and chairs. Instead, there were neat rows of jute bags which were the seats for the students. The bags could conveniently be folded and carried. Only the teacher had a table and a chair, with a blackboard mounted on a wooden easel behind him.
Then I went to a school which was considered to be of an ‘okay standard’ to study till class eight; it was called Sanatan Dharma School. All education from eighth class onwards was classified as college in Budhana, so I went to the local DAV College. We used to walk leisurely to the institution; it was several kilometres away and took us about an hour to reach.
Those days, smallpox, which we called chechak ki bimaari, was like the great plague of previous centuries. It used to wipe out entire hamlets. Pamphlets and posters were littered across Budhana: ‘Report Chechak. Get Rs 100.’ Actually, I don’t remember the exact amount but I believe it was Rs 100, which was a big amount those days. It was as if the disease was a wanted criminal with a reward on his head. (Some years later, smallpox was eradicated and consequently banished from this throne of honour, and polio replaced it.)
There was a girl in the school called Sarwari, who was called Sarvo for short. Yes, the same Sarvo who came to my house to study under Ammi’s tutelage for extra Arabic lessons and who once babysat me. She had strange pockmarks on her face as if she had had the disease a long time ago, but was now cured.
When the government officials came visiting our school, educating us about the illness, precautions, and, what was of most interest to me, the reward for reporting cases of smallpox, I instantly raised my hand.
‘Yes, I know somebody!’
‘Okay,’ said one of the officials. ‘Do you know where that person is?’
‘Yes, of course! Follow me,’ I said, getting up and leading the way to the girl’s house, which was a short walk away.
I knocked on the door. Sarwari’s mother opened it just a bit so that she could peek through. Imagine this scene. I was in the front. Behind me were half a dozen adults, the government officials. Behind them was half of the population of our school, all children who had come to watch this critical scene of how I, one of them, would become wealthy any instant now. They were already marvelling at my luck. I was about ten or twelve years old and this amount in their eyes, at that age, was the equivalent of being a millionaire.
‘What’s up?’ Sarvo’s mother asked, suspiciously eyeing this strange crowd. ‘What do you want?’
‘Is Sarvo there?’ I asked.
‘Yes, she is here. But she is taking a nap.’
‘Wake her up. Wake her up, please!’
‘But why?’
‘Sarvo has these marks. Government doctors are here. They have come from far. Show the marks to the doctor. Get her cured.’
‘But she recovered a long time ago.’
‘How can you be sure? The doctors are here. No harm in showing them,’ I persisted, dreaming of the money.
The officials took a look and immediately said what a colossal waste of time this was! She did have something ages ago, probably measles or chickenpox, but she was fine now. They turned and left. But the kids did not. They started teasing me immediately with a moniker: ‘Abey, Sau Rupay!’ (Hey, Hundred Rupees!) For a long time they called me that instead of Nawaz: ‘Hey, Hundred Rupees, come here!’ ‘Hey, Hundred Rupees, do this.’
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To give you a context, our teachers used to hit us a lot. A lot! They never bothered to give us the reason for the beating. And we did not care. We simply assumed it was one of the laws of
