Came across this story that was shared in one of the forums by Yogendar Dutt
The Butterfly In The Tiger's Stomach - from the Marathi story by Mohan Nanavre
I am Mohan. Let me tell you the story of a little boy called Mhowan.
Mhowan's
grandmother was illiterate. She used to go to Market Yard and buy
nearly-rotten vegetables. She would set out her little shop on the
roadside in Bhokarwadi, and sell these. The people of Bhokarwadi were
all very poor. They were masons, porters, daily wage earners. It was a
hand-to-mouth existence, and all they could afford was the stuff
Mhowan's grandmother sold. But it did not suffice to make ends meet. So
Mhowan's mother used to sweep the pavements and streets outside shops
and restaurants. She would sort out the waste worth selling, and make a
bit of money. When she got a bit of cash, she would buy Mhowan a toffee.
Both
mother and grandmother adored the fatherless little boy. But both were
illiterate themselves, and were busy all day, slogging to fill their
stomachs -- sending Mhowan to school was not something they even
considered.
Mhowan
was now around eight. He used to trail along behind his mother as she
swept the streets. His mother had a cup tied up in her sari. After she
swept the street outside a restaurant the owner would pour some tea into
the cracked cup. She would call out to Mhowan playing nearby, and share
the tea and a biscuit with him.
Many
days passed in this manner. But suddenly, one morning, grandma took
Mhowan to the Bhokarwadi school. She stood outside and called out to the
teacher. "O Master, take this kid into your school. Write his name
down. Come on, write! Mhowan is his name." The master looked doubtfully
at the boy, his torn clothes, his dirty face and hands, his unwashed
body.
"Do you ever bathe the child?" he asked.
"He
hates bathing," said grandma, laughing. "Take him into school, he may
become smarter." Turning to Mhowan, she told him, "Okay now, don't be
naughty and bother the teacher. When you come home, mi chunchuni, chaani dutwaila deel."
The teacher could make nothing of all this. How could he? It was not his language. It was the language of the poor people.
Before she came to the city, Mhowan's grandmother lived in a village. They were very poor there too. They tried to fill their stomachs
with begging or doing odd jobs. Sometimes, when they were very hungry,
her father and brothers used to steal corn or grain from the fields --
it was only to feed a hungry family, but if they were caught they were
beaten up like criminals. To communicate with each other without others
understanding them, their community had developed their own
special dialect. And that was the dialect grandma spoke now. What she
said was, “When you come home, I will make you a yummy dish of mutton.”
Mohan got it, of course, but the teacher did not.
So
Mhowan began school. He had joined school much later than the other
boys, so he was older and larger than his classmates. The teacher put
him on the last bench. The backbenchers were a rowdy lot, constantly
fooling around, teasing each other. But when they were caught, it was
Mhowan who got a thrashing, because he looked the biggest. So a beating
every day became a regular thing. Gadekar teacher was always angry. She
used to rap Mhowan's knuckles every day. Mhowan's homework was never
done; there was no place to study in his house. In the wasti where he
lived, fights were breaking out all the time, and Mhowan could not bear
to miss the fun. And his mother and grandmother could not help him. They
could not even understand the pictures in his books, leave alone the text! So homework never got done, and that added to the beatings.
Mhowan's
fingers hurt with the knuckle raps. They hurt so much that he could not
even break the dry bhakri that his mother had left for him in a pan.
But Mhowan's world had become opened wonderfully since he joined school.
The pictures in his books and on the walls of his room filled his days
with colour and his nights with dreams. When Gadekar teacher beat him,
he used to look at the pictures on the walls – the peacock strutting
with his beautiful tail, the giraffe with his long neck, the striped
tiger, the colourful butterfly. Every day a beating and every night a
new dream.
Every
year on September 5, the school celebrated Teachers' Day. At the
morning prayers, the headmaster told them, "Every day the teachers ask
you questions. On Teachers' Day, you children will get to ask them
questions." Mhowan wanted to do something on that day that would win
over Gadekar teacher, and make her stop beating him. But what? The
answer came from a dream.
One
day he came home after an exhausting day, aching from the beatings,
tired and hungry, and fell asleep without eating anything. The tiger
from the pictures began to prowl in his dreams. The tiger was hungry. He
pushed his face into the empty vessels in the kitchen, and turned them
over angrily. All he found was some stale stinking bhakri. Well, how
could he eat that? He was a tiger after all, even if in a dream! Finally
he saw the picture of the butterfly. He swallowed it in one gulp.
The
butterfly was still alive and began to flutter around in the tiger's
empty stomach. The tiger began to giggle. He rolled about laughing and
called out, "Stop, stop! You are tickling me to death!"
"Well,"
said the butterfly, "You had better sneeze me out, or I will surely
tickle you to death." So the tiger gave a mighty sneeze, and out flew
the pesky butterfly.
Mohan
woke up with a sneeze, to find his grandma tickling his nose to wake
him up. The dream gave him an idea. How could he tickle his teacher and
make her release him from his daily beatings? A plan began to form.
On
Teachers' Day, children asked questions like, "Why did you become a
teacher?" or, "How did Shivaji teach the monitor lizard to climb the
fort walls?"
But Mhowan asked Gadekar bai, "Tumhi karpati dutawli ka?" The other children began to giggle. The teacher looked blank. "Tumhala bailadi nanwat thikti ka?" Mhowan
went on. The giggles began to grow louder. The children were mostly
from Mhowan's community, and they knew what he was saying, even if the
teacher did not.
"Kachra dhundna pudaal ka naanwat?" was Mhowan's next question, and the class grew a little quiet at this.
"Teacher,
this is the language of my family. My grandfather, and even his father,
spoke this language. I just wanted you to hear it. What I asked you
was, -- did you eat your bhakri? Do you like mutton? And lastly, is
gathering garbage good or bad?
Gadekar
bai was silent for a while. In fact she was shocked. How could she say
if gathering garbage was good or bad, when Mhowan's mother did it for a
living? And now she understood why his homework was always undone. From
that day on, Mhowan did not get a thrashing. His teacher understood him a
little more. She appreciated the fact that he even knew a language that
she did not.
The
years went by, and Mhowan dropped out of school. He sold vegetables,
worked as a doorman, began to buy and sell waste materials. Slowly the
dreams faded away. He worked hard all day, hoping for a better tomorrow,
but dreams don’t come when you call, and neither do they always come
true.
I
am Mohan. When I think about Mhowan's school days, I think, a butterfly
flew into a tiger's stomach, and managed to escape. But what if the
butterfly had got plenty of good education? Where would he have been
now? He would have lived as Babasaheb Ambedkar exhorted us to – “Get
Educated, Get Organised, Struggle against oppression." Even today,
children in Bhokarwadi are dropping out of school and starting to work
to help the family. When I think about them, I feel miserable. Then I
tell myself Mhowan's story. That's why I am telling it to you.
