Bholi · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 60 flashcards

K. A. Abbas.

Sulekha. Everyone had called her Bholi — the simpleton — since her childhood.

A foolish person who is easily tricked by others.

She fell off her cot on to her head, and perhaps some part of her brain was damaged; she remained a backward child.

She had an attack of smallpox. Only her eyes were saved; the rest of her body was permanently disfigured by deep black pock-marks.

Very fair and pretty.

She could not speak at all until she was five, and when she learned to speak she stammered. Other children mimicked her, so she talked very little.

A numberdar — an official who collects revenue — with seven children: three sons and four daughters, of whom Bholi was the youngest.

A prosperous farmer's household, with no shortage of food or milk. All the children except Bholi were healthy and strong.

The sons were sent to the city to study in schools and later colleges; the daughters were married off — Radha already married, Mangla's marriage settled, and Champa's to follow.

Because she had neither good looks nor intelligence — and in that household both were what a daughter needed in order to be married. Her sisters were good-looking and healthy, and bridegrooms were easily found for them.

A primary school for girls — in the same year that Mangla was married.

The Tehsildar sahib. He told Ramlal that as a revenue official he was the representative of the government in the village and must set an example to the villagers by sending his daughters to school.

She cried out that he must be crazy, and asked: if girls go to school, who will marry them?

He had not the courage to disobey the Tehsildar.

Because the Tehsildar had to be obeyed and somebody had to go; and because her mother decided there was little chance of Bholi being married anyway, with her ugly face and lack of sense — so the teachers could worry about her instead.

That schooling was seen as a risk to a girl's marriage prospects, and that Bholi was educated precisely because she was considered worthless.

Because it shows that Bholi's neglect is not caused by poverty. There is food, there are clothes, and the sons are properly educated — she is simply not thought about.

That everything counted against Bholi — her pock-marks, her stammer and her hopeless marriage prospects — is exactly what sends her to school, and school is what will eventually give her a voice.

An official who collects revenue.

Because she did not know what a school was like, and she remembered the old cow Lakshmi who had been turned out of the house and sold. She thought she was being got rid of in the same way.

'N-n-no, n-n-no' — and her father asked what was the matter with her, calling her a fool.

So that the teachers and the other schoolgirls would not think badly of the family — not out of affection for her.

Her sisters' old dresses, passed on to her, which nobody troubled to wash or mend. New clothes had never been made for her.

A clean dress of Champa's that had shrunk after many washings and no longer fitted its owner.

She was given a bath, and oil was worked into hair that had gone dry and matted from years of neglect.

Only after the bath, the oil and the clean dress — those small attentions made her think she was being taken to a place better than her own home.

Entangled — as hair becomes when it is never combed — as her hair was, from years of neglect.

Girls squatting on mats, some reading from books and some writing on slates. She looked at them with fear-laden eyes and was asked to sit in a corner.

That there were girls of her own age there, and she hoped that one of them might become her friend.

A horse brown like the Tehsildar's, a goat black like the old woman's next door, a green parrot like those in the mango orchard, and a cow just like Lakshmi.

She managed only 'Bh-Bho-Bho-' and then began to cry. She hung her head, and the girls in the class laughed at her.

The girls hurried out, while Bholi did not dare move from her corner and sat sobbing with her head on the desk.

The teacher spoke her name in a voice so soft and soothing that nobody had ever used such a tone to her in her life, and it touched her heart. 'Get up' was a friendly suggestion, not a command.

By waiting through the stammer and encouraging her — 'Well done, well done' — until she managed 'Bh-Bh-Bho-Bholi', which felt to her like a great achievement.

That the fear in Bholi's heart was the thing to be got rid of — once it was gone, her speech would come as easily as anybody else's.

When Bholi nodded to say she would come every day, the teacher said 'No, say it aloud' — and Bholi answered 'Ye-Ye-Yes', astonished at herself.

A book with coloured pictures — a dog, a cat, a goat, a horse, a parrot, a tiger and a cow like Lakshmi — with a word printed under each in big black letters.

That in one month she would be able to read the book, then a bigger one and a bigger one still, until in time she was more learned than anyone else in the village — so that nobody would laugh at her, people would listen to her with respect, and she would speak without the slightest stammer.

As though every temple bell in the village had begun ringing at once and the courtyard trees had broken into huge red blossom. Her heart was beating with a hope, and a life, she had never had before.

It had become a small town: a cinema under a tin shed, a cotton ginning mill, and a railway station where the mail train stopped. The primary school had become a high school.

A well-to-do grocer with a big shop, a house of his own and several thousands in the bank — but lame, nearly Ramlal's age, with grown-up children from his first wife.

Chiefly because he asked for no dowry. Her mother added that forty-five or fifty is no great age for a man, and that it was lucky he came from another village and knew nothing of Bholi's pock-marks.

'What is that half-wit going to say? The girl is no better than a dumb cow.' Bholi was lying awake in the next room and heard every word.

Separating raw cotton from its seeds — the process carried out at the new mill in the town.

A brass band played a popular tune from an Indian film, and the bridegroom came on a decorated horse. Ramlal was overjoyed at the pomp and Bholi's sisters were envious.

Her veil slipped back for a moment and he saw her pock-marked face. He pointed out to the friend beside him that she had pock-marks; the friend answered that he was not young either; and Bishamber demanded five thousand rupees before he would marry her.

He placed his turban — his honour — at Bishamber's feet and begged him not to humiliate him, offering two thousand rupees. When that was refused he said he could never show his face in the village again.

With tears streaming from his eyes he opened his safe, counted out five thousand rupees and placed the bundle at the bridegroom's feet. Bishamber smiled triumphantly — he had gambled and won.

They were not downcast as a bride's were expected to be. She looked straight at Bishamber, with neither anger nor hate in her eyes — only cold contempt.

She flung it into the sacred fire, got up and threw away the veil.

'Pitaji! He is to take his money back; she will not marry the man' — in a clear, loud voice, and without a single stammer.

Ramlal was thunderstruck, and the guests whispered that she was shameless — so ugly and so shameless.

That for the sake of his izzat she had been ready to marry a lame old man, but that she would not take such a mean, greedy and contemptible coward as her husband — 'and she says so three times over.'

That it was because they all thought her a dumb-driven cow that they were ready to hand her over to that heartless creature — but now the dumb cow, the stammering fool, was speaking. Did they want to hear more?

The confused bandsmen struck up a closing song, and Ramlal stood rooted to the ground with his head bowed in grief and shame. The flames of the sacred fire died down and everybody went away.

Calmly and steadily, that he was not to worry: in his old age she would serve him and her mother, and she would teach in the same school where she had learnt so much.

She had been standing in a corner watching the whole drama, and she answered 'Yes, Bholi, of course' — with the light in her smiling eyes of the deep satisfaction an artist feels at the completion of a masterpiece.

Because she is no longer the simpleton the nickname described. The story took her real name away in its first line and gives it back at the moment she speaks for herself.

Looking downwards — as a bride's eyes were expected to be, and as Bholi's were not.