Gadadhar reached the schooling age in the due course of time. He had become a naughty child. His pranks were tiring down his old parents.
Khudiram got him admitted to the local school and heaved a sigh of great relief.
Gadadhar liked the school. Meeting a mob of kids of his own age was an pleasant experience for him. He started going to the school regularly and happily.
Gadadhar turned out to be a sharp boy. He had a receptive brain. So, the teachers were also happy to have the kid as their student. And the kid had a good memory. He could memorise lessons accurately and narrated them in his own style.
The kid had his own thinking as well.
There was a large pond near the house of Khudiram. The pound was known as ‘Haldarpukur’ to all the villagers for whom it was the bathing place. It had two marked ends. At one end menfolk took bath and the other end was reserved for the women.
Gadadhar also went to the pond for bathing along with other kids. The kids of Gadadhar gang preferred to go to the womens’ end as there was no special segment for the kids. So, the kids naturally thought that they could go and bathe at end they liked.
Once Gadadhar was taking bath there with three or four of his friends. The kids were in a very playful mood. They began to splash water on one another.
It annoyed the women because they were getting sprayed with water.
One of the women could not keep quiet and she yelled at the kids, “Hey brats! You people are male kids. Why should you come to the womens’ end? Go to male end of the pond. We don’t want you here. Now on you won’t come to this end. Do you understand?”
‘‘Why shouldn’t we come to this end? What is the difference between female-male?” Gadadhar innocently asked.
The woman could not explain the difference in words. She gave Gadadhar a dirty look.
Her angry stare frightened the kids and they ran away except Gadadhar. He stood there mulling over the issue and the extent of their fault.
For the next three days he kept going to the women end of the pond and watched the women take bath.
On the third day Gadadhar saw the woman who had rebuked him the other day.
He went to her and spoke, “Aunty! The day before yesterday I saw four women taking bath. Yesterday I saw six. Today there are eight of you. I have been trying to see the difference between male and female. I couldn’t see any. So, the day before yesterday why were you rebuking me?”
The woman stared at the adamant kid.
He had made it prestige issue and was not reconciled. She took the kid by his hand and took him to his mother. She narrated the entire episode to Chandra.
The women laughed.
After the woman’s departure Chandra spoke to her child, “So, you will never again go to women’s end of the pond. Your presence there embarrasses the women. I am also a woman. You can understand that. You can see the difference between your mother and your father. You should not hurt the feelings of women. Their hurt is my hurt. Disrespect to them is indirectly disrespect to me. See it in that light. I hope you will not go to the women’s end of the pond to respect my feelings. You must understand that.”
Gadadhar listened to his mother’s advice very seriously. He had deep respect for his mother and he never went to that end again.
Gadadhar was a brave courageous kid. He was not superstitious the way aged folk were steeped in blind faiths and superstitions. Most of them believed in the existence of evil spirits and ghosts. But Gadadhar refused to believe in that nonsense and would fearlessly march into the places supposed to be haunted by the ghosts.
Once Ramsheela had come to Kamarpukur from Medinipur. She was Gadadhar’s aunt. Ramsheela had the reputation of getting often possessed by the evil spirits. While at Kamarpukur she came under the spell in which she began to thrash around her arms and legs besides muttering something that made little sense.
The members of the family panicked.
No one would go near Ramsheela scared by her fitful act. Gadadhar watched calmly. Then, he walked calmly to his aunt and examined her.
He came back to Chandra and announced. “Goddess has possessed aunt. How nice it would be if she possesses me too.”
Gadadhar was a sweet boy. His cheerful nature had brightened up the household and he had become the favourite of everyone. He was now a seven year old kid. Whenever Chandra cooked some special dish she would give it to her darling son first of all.
And he would share it with his friends.
The kid had a strong muscular body. May be, it was the result of Chandra’s motherly habit of keeping her son treated to tasty bites as much as possible. Gadadhar’s nature was to concentrate on the job in hand. At such times he lost touch with his physical realities even.
He was a born nature lover.
He would watch spell bound the nature’s tapestry of undulating harvests, lush green landscapes, swaying trees, sailing clouds, the caressing breeze, chirping birds and gushing streams. All such scenes gave him immense pleasure and inspired his mind into day dreaming.
One day he saw grey clouds sailing in the sky. As he was watching them a flock of white birds flew into his eye view. The formation flight of white birds under the cover of dark clouds so fascinated him that he unwittingly bent backwards too much to enjoy the scene and fell on his back.
The back of his head hit the ground painfully and he passed out. Someone saw him fall down and he was revived with some effort which included sprinkling of water on his head and some fanning.
It worried the parents.
They feared that their Gadadhar might meet some accident in that way or was he suffering from some mental disease that caused blank spells? Chandra wanted to show him to some medicine man.
But Gadadhar assured her, “Don’t worry, ma. I am not suffering from any mental disease. I only get lost in the beauty of the nature and I love it. The nature bewitches me. It is no disease.”
Gadadhar didn’t show any ill effects on his health due to such spells of black-outs. The parents were no more worried.
