(Part 4/8) “I do not think there is any family in the village that has suffered like mine. There were times when I did not have 5 rupees for my daughter’s school lunch. And when you have no money you are also deemed untrustworthy. There was also a time when I possessed an ox. It was the only thing I had and it worked tirelessly with me in the fields. But the thing was it was not my sole property. My bosom friend and I had put in 50 percent each while buying it with the animal merchant. But one day, without any notice or prior argument, my bosom friend appeared in my doorstep to tell me that since the ox was of no use to him, he would want to sell it and get his share back.
I did not want this on top of all the struggles in my life during that period. Those days I was also suffering from severe gastritis. I had too much stress. Now that the ox problem had surfaced, I lost all my appetite and sleep. If I were to sell the ox how would I survive? How would I plow and how would I feed my children? These questions did not let me sleep at night and the morning was spent vomiting acid from the stomach. I cried until the tears dried up and my heart turned to stone. I wanted to leave, go into the forest and abandon everything. But the thing called love, the thing called attachment did not let me do that. So I went asking around for 1500 rupees so that I could give it to my bosom friend and make the ox my own.
The person who had promised me 1500 said, ‘How will you pay?’ I told him I would. I told him to have some compassion. He said, ‘1500 rupees is a lot of money’. I said, ‘Please give me 1000 rupees but no words of insult’. He put his hand in his pocket and said, ‘Take this, it is 400 rupees. You can leave it on the floor if you do not wish to take it.’ I said, ‘Sir, do not abandon the 400 also, you have so much love for your money.’ Heartbroken and angry, I left empty-handed. When I had run out of options, I went and cried with my mother. She went inside, dug into her bag and gave me the money. I was happy and hurt at the same time. Happy that I would have an ox and sad that I had to take the money that my mother had hidden away. It was many years of her savings.
The ox problem was solved. And I still have the ox to this day, still plowing, still strong. It was because a mother could not see her child’s tears. But the gastritis was killing me from inside. I felt like I only had a few months. During that time my brother was taking some medicine that he had somehow managed to get his hands on. It was not any kind of roots but it came it plastic and was a smooth round shaped pebble. I begged with my brother to bring me some. I cried to him, ‘I am your brother, isn’t my pain yours?’. Finally, he asked someone to buy a file of that medicine. I traveled quite a distance from the village to get the medicine. That night I took the medicine before bed and the next morning I woke up I felt very different. The pain was no more. My body was light and I could not contain my happiness. With this new feeling, I felt I was going to live. I felt, there was a God after all.”