LESSONS FROM YESTERDAY

OCIAL media had some wounding snippets of news this week: a bridegroom cruelly trolled for being dark, young people despairing of getting an education, and parents working themselves to the bone for their children's sake.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

It made me want to share some personal history that reflects the ongoing struggle for respect and opportunity in our society, and how faith can fail.My paternal grandmother, Lalita, was widowed at twenty-six. She and her children, my father and his elder sister Kanthi, were sent to her brothers as poor relatives. My father got everything, but the uncles did not think it necessary to educate Kanthi. Nevertheless, when Kanthi was eight, Lalita requested that she be sent to school so that she could earn her living one day.

The uncles said she would have to be married, but nobody suitable would marry a fatherless girl without money, so they would have to find Kanthi some poor man willing to take her for free. They said it was enough if she could read and do household accounts.

Tripurasundari, Lalita's mother, said nobody would want to marry Kanthi for being dark-skinned, since she was born brown in a pink family. She vehemently opposed Kanthi's education more than her sons did. Ringed by dragons, Lalita politely asked them not only to send Kanthi to school but also to let her have music lessons.

This gave the uncles a ladder to climb down without losing face. They said Kanthi could either go to school or have music lessons. To pacify their mother, they also said Kanthi had to get the highest marks in class each year if she wanted to go to the next one.