Lalu Prasad Yadav - Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey

There was a pond near our school. We cleaned our wooden slates at the pond and rubbed the juice of bhengarai (a local shrub) to shine them. We also swam and bathed in that pond, and fished too. I was good at catching fish during the rainy season. I trapped them in an arsi (a cage made of bamboo sticks). We roasted the catch over a fire of dried cowdung cakes and ate them in the grazing fields.

I greatly loved watching the large yellow frogs in the pond. I enjoyed it when these frogs frolicked in the water and croaked penkooo penkooo. I stood for hours listening to the sound during the rainy season.

We chewed sugarcane sticks most of the day during the season to keep hunger at bay. My friend, Rampravesh, and I were good at climbing trees, plucking mangoes, guavas and jamun during the season. We dropped the fruits from the trees to other friends waiting below. Sometimes, the orchard owner chased us and we fled, not with a sense of guilt but delight. Wheat, paddy, maize, bajra, madua, sathi, gram and sugarcane were among the crops that we had in the farms surrounding our village. There were also large trees of mango and blackberries in the fields around our village.

By the time I completed my education at the lower primary school of Phulwaria, my elder brother, Mukund Rai, had got a job as a daily wage worker at the veterinary college farmhouse in Patna.

PATH TO PATNA

Life went on. One day, a hing (asafoetida) seller came to my village. He placed his bag of asafoetida at the edge of a nearby well. In jest, I threw the bag into the well. The asafoetida seller raised an alarm, bringing hordes of people to our door. Many neighbours drew water from the well to cook their food. Now, everyones food smelled of asafoetida. They angrily complained to my mother. This happened when Mukund Bhai (my elder brother) was on a visit to the village. My mother, fed up with my naughtiness, asked him to take me to Patna to educate and discipline me.

I wept copiously. I didnt want to leave my village. I didnt want to leave the company of my friends and bovines. I didnt want to be separated from my mother. The very idea that I would not have a pond to bathe in, buffaloes to ride on, sugarcane to chew on, friends to play chor-sipahi with, trees to pluck mangoes, guavas and blackberries from, and co-singers to croon Chaita, Biraha, Holi and Sorthi saddened me. I begged my mother to let me stay with her and promised not to trouble her anymore. I also requested Mukund Bhai, but he refused to listen to my pleas. He took me to Patna. Mukund Bhai earned 11 annas (approximately 66 paise) a day. His duty was to feed milk to newborn calves in a farmhouse. He used to get a big pan filled with milk to feed the calves every morning and evening. He fed the calves and shared the milk with me too. He bought me a pair of trousers and a shirt and got me admitted to an upper primary school in Sheikhpura. It was located a few metres away from the one-room chaprasi quarter allotted to Mukund Bhai in the campus of the veterinary college he worked for.

I missed my friends, farms, bovines, trees and the overall ambience of my village and remained grief-stricken for some days. But gradually, I moved on and learned to clean utensils, and cook food for my brother and his associates working on a daily-wage basis at the college.

Maa Saraswati (the goddess of learning) blessed me. I absorbed my school lessons quickly and became quite popular with my teachers and students. My friends at the Sheikhpura school enjoyed my tales of village life. I popularized the chor-sipahi game and others such as kabaddi and chikka among the Patna school students. My school friends loved me and listened to me when I talked about my skills in riding buffaloes and netting fish. It was all very esoteric for them. Mukund Bhai and his associates also loved me for I was adept at cooking, boiling milk and cleaning utensils. I enjoyed doing these chores. My two other elder brothers, Mangru and Mahavir, later joined Mukund Bhai as daily-wage workers at the veterinary college.

There are few things that I regret about my village and schooldays, though the challenges were many and were back-breaking as well as demoralizing. But there is one thing that I repent to this day: I dont have a photograph of my father. He died after I passed my matriculation examination in 1965.

After completing my primary education at the Sheikhpura school, I was admitted to the Government Middle School, Bihar Military Police (BMP) campus, adjacent to our quarters at the veterinary college campus. Shambhu Babu, Devdatta Tripathi, Gorakh Nath, Nagendra Nath Verma and Permanand Babu were our teachers. I always sat on the front bench. I was quite an active student and was the monitor of my class in middle school. I was good at writing essays in Hindi and speeches in the class. I stood up with confidence when I answered the questions asked by the teachers. I always cleaned the blackboard with a duster before our teacher came in. Permanand Babu always kept a pinch of khaini between his teeth and lower lips while teaching us Hindi and writing on the blackboard.

THE ALL-ROUNDER EMERGES

I dont know how I learnt the art of mimicry, but I was good at it. My friends and some of our teachers enjoyed my performances. I had learnt acting by playing chor-sipahi many times in the village and in the schools. Our school once staged Shakespeares play, The Merchant of Venice, at the BMP hall. I played the role of Shylock. The audience, comprising BMP officials, schoolteachers and the veterinary college residents, appreciated my acting. The BMP commandant, Brajnandan Babu, handed the Best Actor award to me. My teachers, Gorakh Nath ji and Nagendra Nath Verma, patted my back, blessed me and boosted my morale. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I sensed that I had an ability to make people laugh. I was pleased when people enjoyed my talk. I loved laughing at myself too. In my later years, in public life, this ability would help me connect with the people, and also effectively hit out at my opponents.

Loha Singh, an All India Radio (AIR) serial in Bhojpuri, was a big hit with Bhojpuri-speaking people at that time. The drama was authored by Rameshwar Singh Kashyap, who himself played the role of Singh in the serial. The fictional character of Loha Singha retired Army jawan of the British erawas the main protagonist in the drama. Singh called his wife Khaderan ke mother and asked her weird questions. His dialogue: Arey O Khaderan ke mother, jab hum Kabul ka morcha mein tha nu was a hit among listeners. As he would begin his dialogue, people would be glued to radio sets, breaking into peals of laughter. (This is how the men in patriarchal society would make fun of women.) I refer to this episode to highlight the state of our society, where women were considered inferior, and it is a situation that persists even today. Here is a sample of some things Loha Singh said:

O Khaderan ke mother! Jaanat badu, Mehraru ke moochh kahena hola or marad ke maatha ke baar kah-e jhar jaala? (O mother of Khaderan! Do you know why women dont have moustache and why men get bald?) He would then offer an explanation:

Sun la! Mehraru log jabaan se kaam lela, eh se moochh jhar jaala aur Marad log dimag se kam lela, eh se kapaar ke baar jhar jaala. (Women speak excessively using their lips which leads to the fall of their moustache. Men use their brain which causes hair fall.)

I memorized Loha Singhs dialogues and reproduced them exactly in his style whenever people asked me to do so. My ability to deliver Loha Singhs dialogues made me the best entertainer among the teachers, BMP officials, students and friends. The radio broadcast of Loha Singh