A few days back, I laid in my bed, in the darkness of night, waiting for sleep to overpower me at the end of an exhausting day. Unfortunately, on this particular night, sleep decided to elude me for some time and so my mind started racing - some nostalgia, some anxiety about the future, the usual rigmarole. My son was sleeping next to me and for some reason, I started comparing his childhood with mine. Perhaps more precisely, I was comparing myself as a parent to my parents. Now I am not one of those souls who conclude that everything that went wrong in their lives was due to the brand of formula that their parents decided to feed them. I truly believe that my parents tried to do the best for us - me and my sister, they did everything in their power to give us a protected and secured environment. However, as I grew up and started interacting with the world, I was exposed to discrepancies and unknowingly, I had embraced that difference. As someone growing up in a developed nation, I think my son may not be exposed to that aspect of such blatant socio-economic differences, but recent events portend a controversial future for his generation. However, that's for another day...
I grew up in a small town in central India. A town whose only claim to fame was that it housed a huge steel plant that provided employment to almost everyone living in that town and nearby villages, either directly or indirectly. Needless to say, this was long before the IT boom era, and so this town found itself to be the destination of thousands of families migrating from all parts of the country to earn their livelihood, and getting a favorable environment to grow and prosper. Our family friends were mostly my dad's colleagues, or his classmates from school - all of them were employed as 'officers', respectable position within the steel plant, earning a decent salary and comfortably perched at the top of socio-economic strata in this town. At the other end of this spectrum, were folks who were called 'chargemen/workers'. The officers resided in nice quarters, frequently maintained by the plant, and typically became bigger as employees traversed up their career path. The workers lived in different quarters - the difference was uncannily discernible, even the localities were grouped accordingly. I grew up hearing these terms and comprehended the difference without quite realizing the implications of that. There are two incidents that came to my memory on this particular night and gave me quite a chuckle.
The first incident happened when I was in first grade. All employees' children went to schools that were heavily subsidized by the plant, more so for the underprivileged class. Our fees were different, even though they were ludicrously paltry to begin with. However, this particular anecdote is around a policy from the plant - the children of the lower income families were provided with school dress twice a year. This was unfathomable to my young mind when it happened for the first time. I simply couldn't understand why some of my classmates got 'gifts' while I sat there, fervently hoping for getting something and ended up being disappointed. So much so, that I went crying home and made my dad's life a living hell to understand why I was not given clothes to wear, when everyone else in my class got those. My dad was understandably confused and perturbed, and it was only after he spoke to his colleague, who had his daughter in my class too, that he explained to me this strange policy. His explanation placated me, and somewhere I took consolation in the fact that my family had the means to buy me new school dresses and therefore, I am actually not losing out on anything.
The second incident happened not long after that - perhaps in my second or third grade. Her name was Anjali, I still remember her face pretty vividly. She was my classmate and her family belonged to the lower income group and even though her house was not far from mine, it was understandably in a different neighborhood. I have a vague memory that she invited a lot of us from the class to her house (I have no clue what was the occasion), and I was the only one to show up because I took those social gestures very seriously and pestered my dad to take me to her house. On one of those visits, there was an event in her house. I remember two things very clearly. At one point, her mom rebuked her for not doing her share of the chores. I remember the look on their faces - her mom furious, my friend feeling guilty, though I suspect she didn't know the reason. At that moment, I could clearly fathom that being a girl, she was expected to help out her mom and not enjoy, like everyone else. Suddenly, even though she was my friend and classmate, we seemed to belong to very different worlds. The second part of this narrative is comical, but tragic at the same time. As a result of her mom's rebuke, my friend started washing the dirty utensils left over by their guests. I, always being the one to show solidarity, sat with her and helped her too, doing my bit just the way I had seen our household help doing so at my house. I remember washing many utensils, in fact at one point, some of their guests came over and handed me more plates to wash, sympathizing that two little girls are doing this burdensome chore. I was innocent enough to recount this incident to my parents and for a long time, this made me the butt of my dad's jokes. He would mock me saying that I was invited only to do the dirty cleaning there!
What happened to Anjali - you may be wondering. Unfortunately, our camaraderie was short-lived after this incident. Anjali didn't progress to grade four, and I don't have many memories of her in my childhood after this incident. The cynic in me suspects that she either discontinued her studies or went to a school with much lower standards. For me though, she stopped existing shortly after that. I do have a fleeting memory of my 'high class' friends sneering at me over my friendship with her and after a point, even with my innocence, I knew this was not meant to be.
As I laid down that night next to my son, hearing his breath, I hoped and prayed that my son doesn't feel embarrassed, if his friend's family doesn't match up to his family's economic status. I hope that our coming generations see each other for what they have the potential to become, rather than from where they have come. Because when we start erecting these barriers in young minds, they leave an indelible impression destroying the joys of unadulterated friendships, and worse they spare none...
