Minarva Panda

Inspirational

4.0  

Minarva Panda

Inspirational

PATH 2.0

PATH 2.0

6 mins
617



“Didi, I am going to open a Boutique near SBI Main branch on this Ganesh Puja. Please have a visit and bless me.”, said Radhika, extending the invitation to me with a wide smile, at my home. Radhika, a tribal middle-aged lady, who lived in a nearby village, was a polite and sincere tailor whose talents as a seamstress were quite known locally. I met her during my visit to her village in search of a househelp. For years I used to stitch my clothes from her without complaint.

It was raining outside. So, I welcomed her to a warm chat over tea. Radhika told me about her 25-year-old son, Gopi – her only child. Gopi, who was now in the Indian Army, had found remarkable success in shooting at the National Games. He rarely came home, only a couple of times a year or so. Our chat led towards the topic of her husband, at which she looked uncomfortable. With a gloomy face, she said that this was the first question of people who wanted to know more about me. She could not answer this. Thinking that she might be a divorcee or a widow or an unwed mother, I decided not to cross-question her on this topic. Eventually, the conversation flowed into different topics.

One late morning, I was surprised to see Radhika approaching with lots of smiles on her face. Bubbling with excitement, she said “Gopi has won a medal at an international meet for shooting. And today at 4 pm, NDTV is going to interview him. He informed me about it today morning. Since I have no TV set, could I come and watch him from your house?”.

Radhika reached and we seated ourselves before the TV. I saw Gopi for the first time. A polite young gentleman, he was answering with a clear and confident voice. On the question about his first shooting lesson and what made him fall in love with this sport, he answered-

     “My mother started training me with the basics when I was very young. I practised at an isolated place near our village, mostly after sunset since the majority of the people in our village would retire early to their homes after a hard day at work. My mother would finish her stitching queue and household chores for the day quickly and then we practised for hours. With each passing day, this sport became my passion. She also helped me continue my studies. Eventually, I started participating in competitions in local meets, and then in state-level competitions. When I won medals for my state, I got a scholarship and admission to the state youth sports hostel where I learnt new techniques. I had nurtured a dream of joining the Indian Army since childhood, so I applied for it as soon as I completed my Higher Secondary. I got selected and continued to learn better disciplines and techniques, which helped me bag this medal”.  

I was still at a loss of words – Radhika? Teaching shooting? Before I could gather my thoughts, after the interview, Radhika walked back silently. The next day swarms of news channel teams reached her house. All of them were vying to get an interview with her, then and there. Radhika called me and I was with her in no time. The interview started with the expected question. She addressed their questions, starting in a heavy voice-

     “I was the only child of my parents. They loved me and wanted to educate me at a time when most in our tribal society would get their daughters married at a very early age. It was a very dark day for me when people from the Maoist group kidnapped me along with my father while we were on our way to my school. I was but an enthusiastic 9th-standard student. Since my father was working as a cook in a nearby hotel, they kidnapped him to cook for the entire group. Once we reached their camp, in the middle of a dense jungle, we had no chance to escape. I didn’t realise that there were darker days to come.

Within a month my father succumbed due to his health ailment. They took me in their group and taught me rifle shooting. Despite my hate for the situation, I cottoned on to all the techniques very fast and rose through their ranks, becoming a lead shooter in their group. One day news had come of my mother’s death from a heart attack. I completely broke down from within.”

     “Time passed. Faith in God never wavered within me. On one of our missions, during cross-firing, a lady member, whom I used to call Didi, got fatally wounded in a crossfire with the forces. With her husband already dead on the spot, I rushed to her and found she tied her two-month son on her back. The little one was safe. Didi handed over her son to me, and made me promise to take care of him while breathing her last.”

“Over the next few days, I realised that God had gifted me a reason to live. There were two paths for me at that moment- either I continue living there as before and take care of the ill-fated infant or plan an escape from the dreary place with the child, on a risky path against the forces of the Maoists. I chose path 2. Somehow, we survive the escape and begin our new journey in life. I named him Gopi, my son. I surrendered myself with Gopi in the nearest Police Post which I found after two days of walking. We were imprisoned for three years. There I got training on stitching and tailoring.”

     “When I was relieved from jail, I had rupees 3000 with me which I saved from doing tailoring and a very young Gopi. I reached my village in the police vehicle. The old house required repairing. Since that day we are living here. Streamlined everything, and ignored intrusive questions. Over time the locals accepted us. I arranged a sewing machine from the Tribal community centre of this village on loan and started stitching ladies’, and kids’ garments. Gopi is now in service of the Indian Army and a national-level shooter. We never complained to God. Many thanks to the almighty, we found each other and became reason to live for each other.”

I returned dumbfounded but impressed, inspired by this iron lady. She had said that these days, Gopi and herself had never felt any struggle or dissatisfaction with the way of life. They were happy with each other and both enjoyed their respective day-to-day work, and duties together. I realized that they had to build each pixel perfectly every day for this picture-perfect life of them, which we see today.



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