featuring INDIAN FUTURES
‘I used to take our cow out to the field every morning after breakfast. Once I was ready, I would take it by the chain, a book in my bag. We stopped at the field next to ours, four kilometres away from our house. It was 1955 or thereabouts. I must have been nine or ten.
I would have to come back for lunch, I would be hungry by then. Then, after lunch, once I was ready, I went out again, and only returned in time for dinner. I would take the cow to the barn, feed it some hay, then I would go inside to have some food.
In the meanwhile, mother would always milk the cow. I remember its udders always full, and mother saying how much better the cow felt once milked. Mother offered me steaming fresh milk, but I have never been a fan of milk. I remember the mug – plain, stainless steel.
After dinner I had to go out again, only next-door this time, to cut the grass from in-between the neighbour’s corn. That’s the best type of grass for cows, it makes really nice, fatty milk. So the next morning, my mother would milk the cow again and place the fresh steamy milk on the breakfast table. My younger brother and sister loved it.
You see, this is why I have never been afraid of going out in the dark, once everyone is back home, because that is when I would have to go out to cut the hay when I was little.
Anyway, mother never let me do any of these things during school time. I would take the cow to the field only at weekends and in the summer holidays. And I would always take my book with me, first it was my reading books, then my homework. And that is how I finished school with the highest distinction, and then I finished university first on the list. And it was a big deal in those times. But I started off by reading my books in the hay, and studying at the light of a gas lamp, and I have always remembered this and I was always grateful to my parents for showing me what was important.’
This is a real story, from a close member of my family who has chosen to be unnamed. What he omitted to say is that through out his childhood he had been living in the railway station’s barracks, as one of the three children of the Railway Station manager. The station was remote, in the depths of Romanian agricultural fields, and the family were fully self-sufficient from the crops of their fields.
INDIAN FUTURES
This post is linked to Indian Futures. Brand new, started completely through the passion of one visionary, the charity which is based in Brighton, UK, is raising funds to make a difference in Vedanthangal and Vandavasi, Tamil Nadu, South India. They have very clear aims: to work alongside the schooling system which is already in place there, but sometimes lacks in quality of teaching or continuity. They basically aim to offer options to the children schooled there. Consistent, reliable and exciting options in education. Options for a better future and, at the end of the day, the option of remembering, like the man in the story above, an exciting and joyful past.
If you liked this story, here are some other one ones about my life in Romania: the one about Grandma, oh, and this one and the one about my childhood.
Indian Futures is an inspiring charity. It is born from the passion and sheer determination and lifelong dream of one person. She has no fancy equipment, no considerable amounts of money, but a great deal of professionalism and a great human heart. Do you know of someone similar? Feel free to leave a comment underneath.
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