The First Trillionaire

Untitled Part 36

Bachchu Singh was born Kesari Singh in one of the Thakur families in a village named Dumri near Begusarai. His mother had named him "Kesari," which means Lion, as she believed that her little boy would someday grow up to be a great leader. He was only six when his father expired. He was a heavy drunkard and died of liver cancer after years of alcohol abuse. Kesari Singh's mother, Bhuri Devi,was a woman of substance, and she left no stone unturned to educate Kesari. She had got him enrolled in the only English medium school in the area and Kesari had to cycle from his village to the school every day. With no other male member in the family except the young Kesari, the greedy villagers started poaching all the land and farms that belonged to them. His mother had a tough time fighting these greedy men but it was all in vain. The greedy men from the village were like wolves, hungry for a piece of the widow's land. And a single woman was an easy prey for them.

It started with Chaudhary's cutting away some land which lay along their fields. They took almost half the land from her field and included it along with theirs. A new boundary was drawn and the sheesham tree that was planted in Kesari's farm was also now in the Chaudhary's farm.

On one of her usual trips around her fields after the paddy crop was planted, Bhuri Devi reached that particular area which lay along Chaudhary's; she was shocked to see that the boundary was now located at a fresh place and the farmers who had planted the crop hadn't mentioned anything about it either. Different thoughts ran in her mind, and she could not understand what was going on. It was clearly Chaudhary's exploitation. In her heart, she knew that the end had begun. This would continue till she was left with a strip of land, barely enough to feed her son and herself.

A heated argument between Bhuri Devi and Chaudhary was followed by the villagers deciding to ask the Panchayat to intervene in the matter. Both the parties put forth their respective appeals and they were asked to produce documentation of the land. Bhuri Devi knew nothing about the papers asin small villages like Dumri there was no need of papers and usually men handled these issues. Chaudhary happened to be a smart man and he had arranged for fake papers. The Panchayat, like the Indian Justice System, took great pride in going by the proof and facts rather than the naked truth. This one event made it clear to the villagers that Bhuri Devi's land was "No Man's Land" and anybody who had ties with any influential person could get their hands on a piece. There was nothing that the poor widow with an eight-year-old child could do. And over the years, the only plot of land Bhuri Devi was left with was the one that lay behind her house. It was used for growing vegetables and became the only means of income left for her.

In those days, the English medium school charged INR five hundred every month as school fee. Kesari's mother sold off the grain that she grew on their farms and the money she got was used to run the house and pay Kesari's fees. With the land being poached by other fellow villagers, Bhuri Devi could no longer afford to send him to the expensive English Medium School. Kesari, therefore, had to start attending the primary school in the village.

The primary school in the village had just one teacher and he liked to be called acharya jee, which was in turn pronounced by the rustic village boys as achaar jee. There were seven rooms, two cleaning staff members and one aged man who used to ring the bell. On the days that acharya jee felt like teaching, he would go from one class to the other and give sums, English and some Hindi words to the students to write, while on the other days he would just ask them to take out their books and read. On some days, when he was not in a very good mood, he would instruct the students to recite tables and factorials of maths and the ones who didn't answer were given sound thrashing. It continued until he was tired of beating up the boys and then he would go and sit under the banyan tree in the courtyard. He seemed like a bitter angry man, taking out his unhappiness on the helpless children he was supposed to teach. When Kesari joined the school, he was awestruck by what went on in the classroom. The kids there sat on rags that were mainly gunny bags. He was like a wonder to the other students in the school. He knew all the answers to the questions that the acharya jee would ask the students, and he took pride in reciting the tables which he had learnt by heart in his old school. His clean uniform, neatly set hair and books covered with newspaper made the children want to be like him. Whatever Kesari did was followed by the other students. Even the old acharya jee had started taking interest in teaching, seeing the kind of student that Kesari was. The functioning of the school changed. Acharya jee came in the morning and an unorganized assembly was conducted each day where in the kids would say a little prayer led by Kesari or acharya jee. They would then head to the classrooms where they were now taught subjects like Krishi (Agricultural Science) and Vigyaan (Science).