Where are the kids? – part 1

One of the good things about living in the Kiran compound, along with the peace and quiet, is the sense of security. All around the confines of the compound there runs a three-meter high wall with broken glass cemented in all along the top. There are also guard towers at the corners of the compound and a big heavy iron gate at the entrance that must be opened by one of the guards. Now, before you get the impression that we are staying in some sort of concentration camp, I should point out that the guards are about as threatening as an Italian vigile on his coffee break, and that everywhere here in the countryside you will find these walled-in spaces. As soon as someone purchases land, a high wall is built around it and the land within those walls might be used for a rice or corn field, a place to keep livestock or to build a home – in this case broken glass is cemented in along the top of the wall – or very often these spaces simply stand empty waiting to be put to some use. So the precautions taken at Kiran are very much the same as those taken by property owners all over the area; and although the precautions are clearly intended to keep things out rather than in, Petra and I are very much interested in keeping things in – namely our kids.

And so with this glowing halo of security all around, we and the kids have been enjoying a kind of freedom that unfortunately would be impossible back home in San Floriano. There the children are confined to our small garden and if they want to go for a bike ride, we need to go with them; if they want to visit a friend who lives just 200 meters away, they need to ask permission; the one thing they can do is take the dog for a walk down the street, but that’s a chore and doesn’t count.

Here, on the other hand, there is the opportunity to run and explore the acres of grounds within the compound, to go to the playground whenever they like, or to meet up and play with the other children that live here during the week. Some of them are the children of staff members that live in the compound or they are children whose parents live very far away and can’t be taken back and forth on the Kiran school buses.

Our kids love their new found liberty and so do Petra and I. I am glad to see them exercise their independence and make friends with the others so easily. Federica in particular has taken to the idea of becoming the little barefooted leader of a clan of small children, chasing each other along the paths of the compound – the Indian children are even speaking a few words of Italian!

It was in this atmosphere of apparent safety and freedom that we met with our first scare. On Sundays Petra, Sarah and I are usually occupied with organizing games and other free-time activities for the children staying in the hostels. The children like to alternate between watching a film and playing indoor games or outdoor games. On this particular Sunday we had hoped to put on a wonderful Indian film that we had brought with us entitled “Like Stars on Earth”. Unfortunately, the DVD player couldn’t read European DVDs and so the kids put on the TV, which meant zapping from one glossy Indian soap opera to another. I sat through a bit of it, but I quickly became bored with something I would never watch at home – let along in Hindi! – and when I noticed that Federica was not among the children, I decided to go out and see what she was up to.

I searched for a good 45 minutes and could not find her. It was a Sunday so it was very quiet and there were very few people about. I asked a couple of people who, despite not speaking English, understood I was looking for my daughter and gestured that they hadn’t seen her. Another pointed in the direction of the cow stalls, but as she was barefoot I thought it was unlikely she would have gone all the way to the far corner of the compound over a gravel pathway. Nevertheless, I went there as well and did not find her.

At this point, dangers appeared before my eyes that moments before had been non-existent: the fish pond was suddenly menacingly deep and wide, the incline from the path to the rice field seemed suddenly steep and slippery, even the sound of a jeep leaving the compound brought to mind the casual meeting I’d had in a London park a year before when I met a distinguished Indian gentleman who, after hearing of my desire to visit his country for an extended time, looked at Federica and said, “Be careful of the little one. Someone will snatch her.”

I tried to put all these thoughts out of my mind and went to get some help; I figured she must be in someone’s house, and I needed to go door to door. I hadn’t told Petra, who had been at the office doing some online work, because I knew how anxious she would get, but at that point I was getting anxious myself. I also went and pulled the boys away from the Hindi soap opera – it must have been withdrawal symptoms that had kept them glued to the TV all that time – and got them to look for her. We were all out shouting her name, knocking on doors, asking the guards; one of them got on a bike to look for her. With still no sign of her, Petra could not contain the tears. One of the staff women tried to calm her down, telling her that certainly nothing had happened to her and that she had to be with one of the children.

It was then that the guard on the bike came back pointing once again in the direction of the stalls. I immediately ran off down the same dark-red gravel path I had been on before, and saw Leonardo walking towards me. “Have you found her? Where is she?”, I shouted. “She’s in the farmer’s house and doesn’t want to come home,” was Leonardo’s reply.

I headed down that path feeling a combination of relief and “Wait till I get my hands on that little pest!” When I came to the stall I couldn’t quite see where the farmer’s house was, but as I walked around it I saw an open doorway where a woman poked her head out and with a nod invited me in.

Their home was a typical one-room brick bungalow: there were two beds which during the day served as a couch, along one wall was the stove and some kitchen utensils, and enough floor space for the family of four to sit and have a meal. Along the other wall were some cabinets stacked one on top of the other. The room was dark, a fan was going in one corner and in the other on the top of the last row of cabinets, was a television with a Bollywood musical on. And there on one of the beds was my blonde barefooted Princess of Varanasi, lying on her side and watching the musical along with the rest of the family! There was something so beautiful about her presence in that room – the obvious contrasts melting away into absolute innocence and naturalness – that any hint of irritation on my part simply evaporated. I found myself sitting on the bed with Federica and watching the musical along with the others until the father came. Soon I discovered what had attracted Federica here.

She had been playing with some of the children near our guesthouse until one of them wanted to go and watch TV at her relative’s – the farmer’s family. Federica followed along, but it would take more than a Bollywood musical to keep her at the house. It turned out that the night before a calf had been born and this is what had kept her there all that time. When the father came in he proudly took me out to the stalls to show me the newborn calf ... and this was how the abyss was breached.

Paul
(09/09/2010)