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  ‘If only voters loved their netas like they love you,’ MLA Ojha said before he left.

  One by one, I blessed the villagers.

  ‘Is he a real prince? Like those in stories?’ I overheard a young girl whisper to another.

  ‘Of course he is,’ her friend said.

  ‘So where is his princess?’ the young girl said.

  I smiled. My princess had moved to another faraway kingdom.

  ‘What time is school tomorrow, Ma?’ I said.

  ‘Seven in the morning. Think about work later. Enjoy being the ruler today,’ she said.

  It is no fun being a ruler when someone else still rules you.

  The Dumraon Royal School is a twenty-minute walk from our haveli. I accompanied my mother as we hiked through fields at 6.30 in the morning. ‘There are three shifts, over two hundred students in each,’ my mother said. ‘7 to 10.30, 10.30 to 2, and 2 to 5.30.’

  We reached the grey-and-black school building. It seemed much older than the last time I’d seen it.

  ‘Why is it black?’ I said.

  ‘Hasn’t been painted in five years. Every year, the rains wreck the plaster even more.’

  I wondered how Stephen’s managed to keep its walls a perfect reddish-brown.

  The first-shift kids had arrived. They played in the fields outside the school. We had two classrooms and a common staffroom. The staffroom had a long table with several chairs—the teachers used the room to rest in during breaks or to check notebooks.

  ‘Why is it so dark?’ I said.

  ‘Power comes at eight,’ my mother said.

  The long table had a stack of files and books at three corners.

  ‘Akhtar, Tej and I have a corner each. The empty one is yours,’ my mother said.

  She sat down on her end. She lit a candle and opened a file.

  ‘These windows could be bigger,’ I said.

  My mother nodded without looking up. Akhtar, Tej and Tarachand arrived in the next five minutes. They folded their hands when they saw me.

  ‘Please treat me as a new employee,’ I said to them.

  Amused, Akhtar and Tej collected their books for class. Tarachand stepped outside the staffroom. He rang the brass bell in the corridor. The teachers left for their classes. Tarachand came back and spoke to my mother.

  ‘SMDC didn’t send anyone,’ he said.

  ‘Oh no,’ my mother said. ‘He promised. The officer gave me his word, Tara ji.’

  ‘I went to his house, Rani Sahiba. He said he tried. Hard to justify more funds,’ Tarachand said.

  ‘We want one toilet. How hard is it to justify funds for one toilet for seven hundred children?’ my mother said.

  ‘He said most schools in the area manage without one. Why is Rani Sahiba fussing?’

  ‘Ask him for half a toilet. Tell him to make one for the girls. One girls’ toilet, Tara ji,’ my mother said.

  ‘Don’t embarrass me, Rani Sahiba. I tried. We need money for so many other things too. We need to plaster the roofs, make more rooms and whitewash the building. SMDC said they have nothing.’

  Noises came from the corridor. Kids had assembled outside.

  ‘Make them sit, please,’ my mother said.

  Tarachand stepped out to manage the crowd. The children sat down at one end of the corridor. They faced a wall painted black.

  My mother held her forehead with her right hand.

  ‘You okay?’ I said to her.

  She nodded.

  ‘What’s SMDC?’

  ‘The School Monitoring and Development Committee. A government body meant to help rural schools. They come, watch and leave. Nobody ever helps anyone.’

  The lights came on. The fan above started to creak. The cool breeze felt wonderful on my sweaty skin. My mother leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, enjoying the fan’s breeze.

  ‘Why are the children sitting in the corridor?’ I said, disturbing her reverie.

  ‘Huh? Oh, that is class I,’ my mother said.

  The morning shift had classes I to IV. Classes II, III and IV used the available classrooms. Class I used the corridor as their classroom.

  I looked outside the staffroom. Kids sat on the floor, waiting for my mother.

  ‘Help me with enrolment. Villagers don’t like sending kids to school,’ my mother said.

  ‘But Ma, I want to teach as well,’ I said.

  ‘There’s lots of other work. Tarachand ji is hopeless at paperwork.’

  ‘Sounds boring.’

  ‘It’s important. I need someone to keep records and lobby with the authorities. I don’t have the energy.’

  I took a deep breath and nodded. Like the school, my mother was turning old and weak.

  ‘Ma, can’t we pay for some of these repairs?’ I said.

  My mother looked at me. I knew the answer from her expression.

  ‘I try to give what I can. We hardly have money to repair the haveli. You were studying in Delhi, so I had that expense. Don’t have much.’

  I felt guilty. I wondered if I could have served my mother better by accepting that HSBC job. At least I could have sent her a cheque every month.

  ‘We manage. Don’t worry. I’m happy you’re here,’ my mother said, reading my mind.

  ‘How?’ I said.

  ‘I take no salary. I pay the staff. If something breaks down I pay for it. Beyond that, it is difficult. The government is supposed to aid us. They don’t.’

  ‘What about what we earn from the fees?’

  ‘It’s nothing. The fee is five rupees a month. Even then, many students don’t pay on time. If we are lucky, the fee covers the electricity bill.’

  The noise levels in the corridor increased. A cacophony of conversation, laughter and screaming drowned our conversation.

  ‘Look at them. Noisy monkeys. I better go,’ my mother said. She walked out.

  The difference between seventy kids on their own and seventy kids with a teacher can be immense. In an instant, the class fell silent.

  I spent the rest of the morning reading all the files and documents related to the school. I quickly realized that running a school of seven hundred with a staff of four is no joke.

  ‘Okay, start counting in English,’ my mother shouted outside.

  ‘One, two, three. . .’ the kids chanted in unison. I didn’t know whether these kids from the village would ever use their knowledge of English numerals. Still, watching them learn something felt good. It felt better than watching a movie at a Delhi multiplex. It felt better than the posh party at Riya’s house.

  ‘From now on, these kids are my life,’ I told myself.

  17

  Six months later

  ‘You promised, Sarpanch ji,’ I said, using a hand fan to cool myself. I had come to his house a third time. Sarpanch Gopi, the man in charge of Aamva village, had assured me that every child in his village would come to school.

  His wife brought us two glasses of lukewarm sattu, a roasted powder of pulses and lentils mixed in water. I wished it was a little cooler and less sweet, but drank it anyway.

  The sixty-year-old sarpanch wore a greyish-white turban, matching his clothes.

  ‘I thought they joined school. We sent eight children,’ he said.

  ‘They stopped coming after a week.’

  ‘So what can I do, Rajkumar sahib? I tried.’

  ‘You have to tell them to commit to it. School isn’t like visiting the village fair. It takes years to get educated.’

  ‘And what do they do with it?’

  ‘Excuse me? It’s almost free. Where is the problem?’

  Gopi paused to look at me. He took out a beedi from his pajama pocket and lit it.

  ‘Time. Their parents would rather the children help in the fields.’

  ‘And what will they do when they grow up?’

  ‘They will grow up only if they have food. They need to work in the fields for that.’

  I fell silent. You can’t win over villagers with an