Encounters with Children part 1

I said recently that I haven’t been having much interaction with children, but this week belied that claim.

Encounter 1

H is in class 1. He has almost blond hair from neglect or malnutrition, I don’t know. He has the physical look of a little boy-bully, a slight clenching look about his jaw that makes you think he might take pleasure in swinging his arm at another child. He looks like he swaggers around with a couple of followers.

Obviously, I didn’t have very high opinions of this six year old.

Since I finally met their mother and made a plan for them to stay after school, I have learnt to see him in a different light (maybe more as a six year old and less as a WWF wrestler).

He came to my office and asked if he could call his father, the first day. When I said that his father knows when to come, and explained what he has to do after school, he looked upset and mumbled, “Bhuk lagi hai.” I decided that these three children, at least the younger ones, should be given a snack by the school. I explained to H that after school, he should first take his bag up to D ma’am, then go to A ma’am and get a snack, then go to the preschool and rest and play, and then go back up to D and do some homework and read. I also put him in charge of his brother, who is only four or five. Then, I went and introduced him to each of these people.

After that day was Teachers’ Day, and in that period of no-one-in-charge-time, I found H sobbing outside, with a couple of children clustered around. I discovered that his new pair of sunglasses was broken (lots of the children had come in sunglasses that day), and he claimed some didi had done it. I tried to figure out the story, then tried to explain to him that sometimes things break. He was inconsolable.

Finally, I figured out that he was afraid that his father would be angry, naturally, since he must have just bought them. I had to assure him that I would write a note for him. I also kept the sunglasses, thinking that a separation from them would be good, and if the father was told, “Ma’am lin hain,” it sounded like something not to be argued with. I commiserated with him again about how things break sometimes, isn’t it a pity.

He kept standing anxiously at the periphery of my vision until I write the note and tucked it into one of his many pockets (it was coloured clothes that day).

The next day, he ran into my office in tiffin time and asked me if I still had the sunglasses. I had given them to our accounts clerk, B ji (when in doubt, give to B), and sent him there, calling through the partition to tell him. H examined them and came back to me, “Ma’am, abhi bhi tuta hai?” (“Ma’am, they are still broken?”) I nodded, sadly. “Kabhi nahin banega?” (“They’ll never get fixed?”) I shook my head, sadly.

H inspected the glasses again, but this time with more interest, understanding an important fact of life (at least it looked like that). Then he gave them back to B ji, saying, “Abhi rakhiye,” (“Keep them for now”) or something, and ran off. B ji called out to me in consternation, “Yeh phir phek ke chala gaya!” (“He’s left them again!”)

I laughed and told him to keep them for a little while. I think H is too attached to them to just let them go, and he thinks they will be safe in the office.

Yesterday, at 3, H came again to confirm what to do – go to A ma’am and…? Couldn’t say the words too boldly on his own… “she will give something to eat.” I went over everything with him (he told me that he had finished his homework already, so I said he could read and D ma’am would give him new work) and sent him off.

I went outside at 5 to look at some construction stuff. The children were just leaving. H ran up to me to tell me how it all went. He put his hand into mine as he chattered away, about how he wrote four pages of “A B C D” (hmm…must look in to that) and then told tales about his sister, who smiled annoyedly at him. Then he waved gaily at me and departed.

You can see that I don’t think of him as a WWF wrestler any more.