Neetu (name changed) has always wondered.  

 

“Why does she beat us so often?”  

 

She was sitting on the edge of one of their field, taking a break from digging the earth. It was the season of nandai (pulling out weeds from corn crops), and as she sipped a few drops of water, she looked at the weeds she had pulled out from around the main crop of corn.  

 

She stifled a yawn, exhaustion imprinting every limb of her body. It had been an early morning, just like every morning, for her. Out of her four sisters, she was responsible for milking the two buffaloes. Then she had to lift a heavy basket of cow dung and travel a kilometer to the field to dump it. Next was preparing breakfast.  

 

Her two elder sisters had chores of their own. The eldest, Neelam (name changed), was soon to be married. She used to wake up and clean the entire house, her school now long forgotten. Her second eldest was Seema (name changed). She usually had Neetu do her chores, roaming in the free air of field, not scared of their mother at all. 

 

Neetu stood up at her mother's sharp voice, who was calling from the other end of the field.  

 

“Come here, you wench. A day’s work isn’t done sitting down.”  

 

Neetu rushed to her, her tattered salwar kameez a little loose. She just returned from school and found no lunch, just as there was no breakfast for her in the morning. She straightened her back and looked at the green hills that surrounded her all around. Then she hunched her back and resumed the nandai. 

 

 

“Why didn’t you put the water? The chulha (earthen stove) is empty.”  

 

Her mother’s firm tone brought her rushing to the kitchen.  

 

She saw her mother putting on a misshaped kettle to boil water. It was for her brother, who was nine months old now. Her stomach growled, and she started to look for stale chappati of the morning, hoping she would find at least one. Seema didi always made enough, but it was after Neetu had left for school. She found one and took some pickle, rolling it in a fold and then rushing out into the courtyard.  

 

Chomping on her food, Neetu heard the wail of her brother, which quietened after her mother’s soothing voice calmed down the baby. 

 

Dusting off the powder from the dry roti she had finished, Neetu went back inside, and she had another chore waiting. 

 

 

They had to fetch water from bai. It was the tap so far away, one that supplied water to all the villages nearby. Neetu didn’t like to go alone, but it was fun with friends from the village. The path was long, and the bai was far away, after two villages. The hills were rough, and the narrow path sometimes looked like standing rather than lying down.  

 

Neetu had no problem climbing up the hills, and she was only scared of coming down with a pot on her, filled to the brim. The pot was too big for her, and her arms barely reached its top when it was on her head.  

 

But her mother’s angry face used to flash before her eyes, and she used to make sure she brought back the pot in one piece. She talked a mile an hour with her friend, weaving through the thin Cheel (pine)trees thickly spread on the mountains, with seeds that could be eaten. They were small and tasty, just like cashews.  

 

The pot she was carrying was bigger than the one she was used to. Her mother had changed the pot to give the older pot to her younger sister. Balancing the new pot on the head was difficult, especially when climbing down the hills towards their house. Behind her, her younger sister Simro would be balancing her own pot, arms too short that barely reached the rim of the pot’s mouth to grab on to it, just like Neetu, who also struggled.  

 

They would come home, and all the water they had hauled would be given to the buffaloes. Standing and heaving, as their mother filled the stone tub-like space made for cattle with the water, Neetu would pray for the buffaloes to not finish the water. 

 

They always did.  

 

She would be angry and curse them, using the exact words that her mother would use on her. She hated those buffaloes. 

 

However, it wasn’t so bad when it rained. She and Simro would run out and find big stones down by the larger fields. Some water would be trapped between two rocks, scooped by both sisters. They would fill it up in buckets, something ideal for them to lift, and then carry the bucket for the buffaloes to drink water. Rainy days meant no long journey to the bai.  

 

Neetu liked rainy days. Every drop mixing with their sweat didn’t have to work as much as on ordinary days. They would stay at home, and her sister would make aenkalli (chappati made from powdered rice). After selling what the buffaloes gave and putting aside for her brother, milk was scarce, but with the aenkalli, her sister would allow half a bowl for each of them. She never told her mother about it. 

 

Neetu couldn’t understand how her sister did this since her mother had the eyes of an eagle and would spot missing food away very quickly. 

 

She used to wonder why the buffalo were that important to her parents. And not her. And not her sisters. And not their food. And not their clothes. Her mother loved the buffaloes. And the crops. And them working in the crops. And her new brother. Who would just cry and cry and cry. 

 

Then she would think that maybe it was the case with every family. And get back to work. 

 

*** 

 

One time, Manju, Neetu’s classmate, brought delicious lunch, the smell of which wafted their classroom. Spreading out her lunch on the mat that they sat on, Neetu looked at Manju’s food and realized that she had never got such delicious lunch. Her stomach churned at the smell, and for the first time in her life, she realized that not all parents were the same as her mother.  

 

*** 

 

She used to wait for her father, and he would come on leave from Air Force and get her new clothes. Her mother never allowed new clothes or sweets when he was gone, so Neetu learned how to read time and months, and her father told her he would come back four months later, she started to count. 

 

It was happy counting. 

 

*** 

 

The walk back from the school was the best. It was neither about work at home nor about studying new lessons at school. She liked to skip around, letting go of her friends who had different ways back to their homes. And so, even though she realized that her mother might not love her as much as she wanted to, she had a father who did. And when she also realized that her mother loved her brother more than her and her sisters, she was okay with it. Because her father would always kiss her first and give the best present to her.  

 

And so what if she has to make her own food for school and her mother beats her because she sometimes doesn’t cook food or doesn’t feed the buffaloes?  

 

Neetu skipped on the dusty road, her feet covered in the soft dirt of the path. Leaving her school behind, she was bouncing back to her home, the long way unwinded as the faint breeze of the mountains met her face. She looked at the sun filtering in through the pine trees that stood on the edge of the path, with the slope of the mountains rolling downwards into a valley. She skipped and smiled, hanging off her school bag off her arm, her slate clacking with the empty ink bottle made of glass. The powdered remains of the chalk are depositing at the bottom of the bag. 

 

She had made her own food and milked the cows. She would have to run to the field when she got back home. There won’t be any food for them, and her brother would cry at night. And her mother would beat her when she did something wrong. And there was this jar of sweets at the shop next to the school, but she didn’t have the money to get the one rupee sweet like many of her friends.  

 

But Neetu skipped, and all the thought went away. Her mother was always angry, and her sisters would never listen to her. She was hungry. But Neetu liked it. 

 

Neetu smiled and looked ahead.  

 

“I will love myself.”  

 

Something said inside her. 

 

And all was well. 

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