Kathawachak

Kathawachak {1994}

I was working as a poultry field supervisor for PRADAN, a rural development ngo. Once, along with Neetu a women's SHG field officer, I went to visit Chorbasai, a village in tehsil Kishangarhbas, gram panchayat Khanpur, district of Alwar, Rajasthan to do a survey for potential benficieries for doing poultry farming, through bank loans under IRDP scheme. On the way, we came across a few village women carrying bundles of straw on their heads. One of the women seeing my specially designed jeans with elastic cuffs at the ankles laughingly exclaimed to Neetu,"Yeh chora ne koosni si keh pehan raaki hai?" Surprisingly, after many years this became a fashion trend and you can see elastic or zips stitched to the ankles of pants worn by youngsters.

On reaching the village, we contacted the sarpanch and with his help started collecting the people of the village at the house of one of the villagers to hold a meeting. The villagers were trickling in when the woman of the house, her face covered with a dupatta (veil), approached Neetu and asked her if she would read the spiritual booklet of goddess Durga for her since she was illiterate. Neetu made an excuse and then asked me if I would do it. She said that she would conduct the meeting on her own, while I read the religious book for the woman. I was a bit put off by the prospect of having to read the holy book, but agreed to do so, with the hope of earning the villager's respect and faith and thus getting their support for starting poultry farms in their village. Therefore, while Neetu was conducting the meeting, I was reading the holy book for the woman. The woman sat down in front of me with her head covered with her duppatta, and placed a plate containing fruits and sweets and a glass of water between us. Thus, I became a Kathawachak or Reader of Holy scripture for that one time.

The booklet was in Hindi and since my Hindi wasn't very good, it was really a slow and hard task for me. Initially it felt a bit boring, as I was not paying attention to what I was reading. Gradually, my mind started wandering and I started wondering, "Why did the woman need anyone to read the book for?", "if others too had read the book for her before me then she should be knowing everything by heart and should not require anyone's help now". Therefore, I decided to test her by skipping first a few words, then a couple of sentences. She didn't say anything or seem to miss anything. I kept skipping lines but the booklet never seemed to end.  My throat was growing drier and drier, and I felt thirsty. My heart was drawn towards the water and eatables kept in front of me. Then it grew interesting because in it was written that the devotee was to fast and feed fruits and sweets to sadhus and youths once a week. Moreover, this rule had been repeated umpteen times in the booklet, but having gone through the booklet without interest or concentration, I had missed the whole thing. The thought struck me then that those eatables were for me. Now I started reading with even more zest, but the booklet never seemed to end. The booklet contained around thirty pages.Finally,I finished reading the book in approximately an hour. By then I was completely drained out. I got up and went out to join Neetu.

The meeting was just coming to an end. Seeing me, Neetu smiled and then asked the woman to give me some water to drink. We concluded the meeting and went back to our office at Kishangarhbas. Unfortunately, we were not able to get any beneficiaries for doing poultry in that village. So much for my hard work. May be the gods were testing my sincerity and were not impressed! Guess I deserved it for cheating a poor, illiterate, innocent village woman.

Moral : Never try to cheat others, specially the poor and the weak!

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