Labouring to be educated

Roopinder Singh 

He carried his eight decades of existence with an ease that was reassuring. He looked strong and his demeanour was of a person who could take care of himself. My mother is the reason I came to know him four decades ago as he had worked with her. Even though the way he recalls her acts of kindness, which she says were simple courtesies, is a bit embarrassing at times, one is always tempted to listen to those anecdotes again!

My impression of him was one of a dedicated and hard-working person. He was sweet to us children. Decades later, after I joined a newspaper, he would call whenever he read anything with my by-line. These included articles published in Log in Tribune, which were about a ‘world’ he cheerfully confessed ignorance of. Still, he would find something encouraging to say, and our conversations would have bits of information about his family — how his children were now accomplished professionals. 

When I met him recently, he opened up and told me how he had left his house after confronting a domineering father while he was still in school. “I took up work as a daily wager at Rs 1.50 a day, but I kept studying and finished my schooling. Then I got work as a beldar in an educational institution. I earned my BA degree and learnt typing. A kind senior gave me a job where I could work behind a desk... and thus study more and practice my typing.

“Soon my typing speed became legendary and I got a far better job in the government, where I met my future wife. Even as we raised a family, we continued our studies. I am a double MA and an LLB and she is a PhD. Both of us have worked very hard to better our lives.” He rose high as an administrator, she as an academic.

This reminded me of what a former Editor-in-Chief had told me years ago: “We are where we are because of our education. We would be nowhere without it.” He, too, is from that generation. Post Independence people of Punjab were traumatised by the Partition. Individuals accustomed to riches had lost everything — literally or figuratively. Land yielded barely subsistence-level living and there were no jobs. The quest to improve one’s life lead to educational facilities, and people worked very hard to study.

Nowadays, as I go for my morning walk, I see parents struggling to push reluctant children to school. So often there are demands for grace marks in examinations. Such students may never experience the hunger of knowledge, and consequently never savour the joy of it being satiated.

Meeting this man, made me realise how privileged I was since our only struggle was for a good academic performance. And we cribbed about that too! I felt a little guilty about my relatively easy childhood, and grateful for all that I got on a platter.