Sunday, June 4, 2000		Article

Bringing the dead back to life
By Taru Bahl

I WAS visiting a retired, much- decorated Major-General from the Infantry and his elegant wife. We were talking of how the media had taken the Kargil war into every Indian home. As if on cue, the doorbell rang and an elderly gentleman with a stoop ( was it because of age or grief?) walked in.

Behind him, hiding behind a veil, came a young girl, perhaps just 20. They both proceeded to touch my hosts’feet and with a box of sweets handed a wedding invitation card to them. The old man insisted that they should come to bless the newly weds. The General and his wife happily agreed.

The girl was Banno, a Kargil widow. Her husband, a jawan in the Indian Army, had been recruited by the General and died in action. The gentleman who had accompanied her was her father-in-law, Kirpal Singh. Banno was three months pregnant when her husband was killed in Kargil. The family was devastated. He was the only son and also the sole breadwinner. The girl’s parents came to take Banno away not wanting her to add to her in-law’s burden. Her brother, who works in Ambala, even advised her to get the baby aborted. But her in-laws would have nothing of it. They reassured Banno’s parents that she could stay with them, eat what they cooked and try to come to terms with the unfairness of the situation.

The baby grand-daughter would now remain with them. The compensation money which they had received from the Indian Government had been split into three portions. They gave the daughter-in-law one portion of it. The second has been put in a fixed deposit for the grand daughter. The money can be withdrawn only after she reaches 18 years of age. The third part of the compensation was retained by the in-laws. The expense for the wedding, including the girl’s trousseau, were paid for from this share.

Kirpal Singh felt that it was only fair for him to bear that cost and discharge his duties as honourably as he could. His logic was simple and earthy, "Iam only doing what my Lord has willed me to do. My son did his duty for his country, countless other puttars of the land are doing their duty and I have to do mine. If my son had got widowed, wouldn’t we have got him remarried?"

The decision to keep the baby was unanimous, and included Banno’s opinion. They all felt it was best she began her life afresh with no encumbrances and reminders from her past. Her future husband was in the know of things and he had no objection to Banno maintaining ties with her ex in-laws and the child from the previous marriage. It was his first marriage.

The whole problem had been settled with so much dignity and humanity that thinking about it one gets emotionally charged. You almost want to go and hug the old gentleman and tell him that if there is God on earth it is in people like him. His was a simple education from a nondescript shanty of a school. He is a part of a social environment where there is an enormous premium on a male child, and amniocentesis is a harsh reality. It is also not uncommon to find in-laws torturing their widowed daughter-in-law, or cheating her of the compensation received from the Army. But Kirpal Singh is different. He has his own little rulebook. At the end of the day, he wants his two rotis and dal and he wants it with clean hard-earned money.

For him, his daughter-in-law became a daughter the moment she stepped into his house. Now that she was widowed in the prime of her youth, the onus of bringing happiness back into her life, rekindling love in her heart and creating a sparkle in her eyes was on him. The tough General told me with moist eyes, "When he sends her away, this six-footer of a hardy man will shed tears for her because he loved her as a daughter".

This saga of immense human goodness stands out as a lesson for many of us. It is not education, status in life, material acquisitions and outer polish and sophistication which make us good or bad. One has heard countless stories about the so-called successful and sophisticated people of the world who have cheated their own kith and kin of property and money in the most devious of ways. But, rustic Kirpal Singh goodness makes him stand apart.

His is a simple life with simple needs. The thought of treachery / deceit or mental and emotional abuse doesn’t even cross his mind. It is not an option he considers. One is not to be mislead by his gentleness, misconstrue it as a sign of weakness. His was a tough decision, one for which he wasn’t particularly lauded. The village folk called him foolish and stupid. To take on the responsibility of a child, a girl child at that, and to send away the daughter-in-law, one who could have looked after him and his wife in their old age, was not a wise thing to do, they said. Also, it was not a very good precedent to set.

Life has a strange way of squaring up. When you see so much cheating, meanness and back-stabbing around you, suddenly there comes a man like Kirpal Singh telling you that all is not lost, and that goodness has to prevail.