The stories from my childhood and of Dad and others…

1.       Tauji – Sh Mange Ram – when he was a kid was juming walls. He got himself hurt badly by a jaili (two thronged stick used in farms) that almost pierced this head and just missed his eyes. He did not cared and kept on playing. After sometime, he noticed blood coming out and started crying. Dad rushed to call his father (Sh Prabhu Ram). The first thing he did was thrashed tauji and warned him not to do something like this again and afterwards had him treated with butter and burnt grease oil. Tauji has since then quite a mark on this forehead.

2.       Similarly dad had a big cut on his wrist while cutting grasses. He did not show it to anyone for 2-3 days when the pain had become unbearable and granny knew it and she then put some butter and bandages on it.

3.       Dad’s friend in his school got sick with fever and came to our house and stayed there for 2-3 days. Then dad went to drop him at his house, which was in a nearby village, his family came to know that he was not at home for a while.

4.       Dad had only one pair of slipper every year, which did not lasted very long. In the summers, it was too hot to step with slippers and everyone went to school barefoot. Whenever they spotted any cow dung, they raced to it and stood over it – and what a great relief it was from the hot sandy surfaces!

5.       Me now – getting out of home in long summer breaks was a quite a challenging task. Mom would not let us out as it would be too hot. She insisted we do our home work or sleep till evening before we could be out. So we pretened to sleep and when she had also slept, I would try to sneak out as silently as possible. Any sound and mom would get up and thrash me..