Lessons from a Little Master
By
Shri Udayan Majumdar, Editor, ICRA Limited, New Delhi

I met Guddu, a six-year-old village boy in school uniform, struggling up hill with his heavy school bag in a dense coniferous forest at Chakrata, Uttaranchal. He was alone singing a lilting tune all to himself when our paths met. It was early morning, rather cold, and the sun had just risen from beyond the mountains covered with tall pines, some hanging a green cone or two. Nearby there was an unnamed waterfall rushing down forever to meet a rivulet far below.

For a little boy, Guddu proved rather reticent. Initially, he was unwilling even to divulge his name. I told him I loved his pine trees, his mountains and his waterfall roaring in the distance, but he simply would not let down his guard. We got into a conversation only when I asked him if he could tell me where I could find toffees among the mountains. He told me there was a small grocery shop after the next turn, and the man sold toffees of various colours. I accompanied Guddu to the shop, bought a handful, and offered him some to share among friends in school. The little boy's face lighted up, but then he paused, and finally turned down my offer. I almost pleaded with him to take at least one, but he refused saying he could have toffees only when he got good marks in school.

Not too keen to wear my disappointment on my sleeve, I changed tack asking Guddu if he had any brothers or sisters. At this, he smiled his innocent smile, revealing a few missing teeth. Yes, he had a small sister who was yet to walk or talk but loved him a lot nonetheless. Every day, when Guddu left home for school she bid taa-taa from their mother's lap. On his way, Guddu would pick flowers, wild berries, butterfly's wings, bird feathers, and anything interesting, and take them to his sister. But she would put everything in her mouth, and Guddu would get scolded for that. "She is very small," Guddu explained to me in his sister's defence, adding, "when she grows up like me, she'll not do that any more."

We parted ways at the grocer's shop, Guddu going up to his school and I returning to my hotel on the slopes for breakfast. But before parting company we agreed to meet the next day, same time, same venue. That night I went to sleep quite excited at the thought that I would meet my little friend early next morning. Just one encounter and I had grown so fond of those little hands and little feet, and a little conscience that could hold out against a large handful of colourful toffees.

Guddu arrived late for our rendezvous the next morning. He had tripped over a stone chasing a butterfly and bruised his left knee. But Guddu was a brave little boy. He had tied up the wound with his handkerchief, sat on a rock and cried a little, and then got up to proceed to school. I offered to take him to my hotel, wash his wound with Dettol and reach him to school in the car that I had hired for my brief vacation at Chakrata. "In a car?" Guddu exclaimed, looking all very pleased. But then, he thought for some time and said he would rather walk. The wound was small he said, and he was strong enough to trek to school even with his limp. "I must become a strong man, my father has told me," Guddu explained, discarding effortlessly the extraordinary opportunity for a car ride to school.

I walked up with Guddu beyond the grocery shop that day. The school, I discovered, was a clearing in the forest where the village schoolmaster had slung a tarpaulin, tying its four corners to thick pine trunks. There was a small black board standing in a corner, and besides that, nothing else to indicate that I was visiting a school. I could feel Guddu was none too comfortable with my accompanying him and wanted to be with his little friends (the master was yet to arrive). I patted him on the back and turned to leave. Then I stopped and told him I would not see him in the afternoon since I would be travelling back to Dehra Dun and thereafter to Delhi, where I had to work for a living. May be our paths would cross again, some time, some day.

I think Guddu's face turned a little sad. He thought for a while and then fished out a green-and-black tail feather of some unknown bird from his pocket and offered it to me. He had collected the feather on his way for his little sister. I took it and asked him if he would now accept the toffees I had bought for him the day before. This time Guddu agreed to take one, saying he would have it when his masterji wrote "good" in his copy.

Back in Delhi, Guddu keeps coming back to me, with his little hands and little feet, his missing teeth, and his thick black hair oiled and combed down carefully on either side of a thin parting. In fact, he always pops up before the mind's eye whenever I'm close to coveting something that I can do without.