My Grandfather Part-II

All men are not born equal. We do not start at the same points. If life is a race, the starting points differ for all.

Thus, to determine the magnitude of progress one was able to achieve during one's lifetime, is to meticulously trace the starting point and then measure the distance all the way to the end point, figuratively.

My Grandfather came from a small village inside what was once the capital of one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the ancient Viratnagar, where the Pandavas, the heroes of the 'Mahabharata' are believed to have spent their Agyatvasa, the exile with the defining condition of maintaining the secrecy of their identity and to remain unfound.

By  way of  inheritance, a small stretch of some semi-arid land had fallen to his father's share. It fell on his mother alone to shoulder the responsibility of raising him and his siblings.

For me, she embodies the archetype of 'Mother India', played by Nargis in the film of the same name. She and in general, the women of that time, struggled perpetually to make it through the unfavourable and unjust course of life.

My Grandfather, while still a kid, used to help his mother in farming the piece of land. My Great Grandmother, wanting him to grow and escape the cycle of impending ruin, sent him to study at her brother & his uncle's, who was a teacher in an established Government High School of that time, nearly forty kilometres away.

Although it is a story for another day how he excelled in his studies at that Government High School and was offered an appointment as a 'Patwari' in the subordinate revenue service of the then Jaipur State under the Maharaja (though his service was later regularised under the state of Rajasthan after independence), the story for today is the one that he narrated with dramatic hand gestures and a sparkling light in his eyes.

One day, he was traversing from his hometown to his uncle's on foot, passing through long stretches of unattended & desolate forest.

He suddenly spotted a Jarakh (striped hyena) from a distance. It was coming towards him. Though initially paralysed with fear, he managed to climb up a nearby tree.

The hyena having seen him making all the way to the top, hovered around the tree for a while and then went away.

After some time, he climbed down and took to his heels all the way to the nearby village and ultimately to his destination, managing to escape unharmed.

~ Ashutosh