A Series of Lashes

Before father’s death, our family used to be wealthy. But when he died of leukemia, we were left with a few acres of arable land but with much debt which was up to our necks. As a result, mother had to take the role of breadwinner of the family.

I have six siblings. At that time, my eldest sister just passed Matriculation Examination. My two elder brothers also had to drop out of school. My two other elder sisters continued studying. I, the last but one child, was then 7 years old. My youngest brother was only 3 years of age. In fact, none of us was able to stand on our feet. So mother was in tight corner concerning the future prospects of her children.

She sent my eldest sister to Yezin Agricultural University with the financial support of one of her best friends. One of my elder brothers was sent to Yangon to learn goldsmith. The other elder brother of mine had to plough the fields for rice. One year later, he also went to Yangon to follow the same path as the other brother.

My youngest brother and I were lucky enough to continue our schooling. But some others had to sacrifice for us. Three years after father’s death, one of my sisters had to drop out of school and be sent to Yangon to learn dress-making. The other elder sister and we, the two youngest, continued our schooling.

My mother had to do different kinds of tasks to earn money for our schooling as well as for our livelihood. She went to the local fishing centers to trade leaf-covered doughnuts with dried fish or money. She also went to sell the leaf-covered doughnuts or fried doughnuts in the free video shows of the neighbouring villages. She went to sell the snacks in Zat-pwes    (a kind of Myanmar traditional entertainment show) of the villages – near or far. It was very difficult for her to do so – as she has chronic bronchitis. During winter, she had to wear a thick sweater to keep her warm lest her disease would come up. But her disease sometimes showed up uninvited during her selling. But she withstood suffering from the disease till all the snacks had been sold out.

In the beginning of the monsoon, she had to do transplanting young paddy in the fields to earn money like any other poor women of the rural areas. She sent us to school with the money she earned by her sweat and great labour. She even did not pay as much attention to her suffering from bronchitis. She said to us, “You have to try to be educated. It is very important. Don’t compete with others by clothes. Compete with them by education or knowledge. Knowledge will go along with you throughout your lives. Clothes are just transitory. Always remember this. If you look at the looking glass for your beauty, you must study hard for your lives.” I was even scornfully dubbed “Red Shirt” by one of my neighbours as I always had to wear an old red shirt. At that time, I even thought that the red shirt was very beautiful and wondered why the man scorned me for wearing it!

Mother also told us a lot of Buddhistic narratives so that we would be intimate with Buddhism. We used to go to sleep only after mother had told us one or two stories. Mother loves reading very much and so told us many stories including the Ten Great Buddhistic Narratives. She taught us how to pay our obeisance to the Lord Buddha and how to say our prayers. So we became familiar with Buddhism.  

To earn our school fee, we had to go groundnut-planting, groundnut-harvesting, and groundnut-collecting for wages. Sometimes, we went to catch crabs and prawns in the streams beyond the fields.

My eldest sister was very bright and hard-working. So she was able to pass all the standards outstandingly. She got distinctions in all subjects in the final examination of Grade Nine. She also passed the Matriculation Examination with three distinctions. When she completed Yezin Agricultural University, she received the scholarship to study in Israel as she got the third position in the whole university. Another elder sister of mine also got the first prize in every grade. She passed Grade Eleven with one distinction. The condition of getting even one distinction in such a rural area as ours was also very difficult.

My younger brother also got the first prize in every grade. The remaining brothers and sister of mine passed their grades with prizes, as well. But I did not try very hard in my studies and neither did I know the value of education. As I was very afraid of Mathematics and English, I hardly passed all the grades let alone passing the grades with prizes like the other siblings of mine. In fact, it seemed that I was the most stupid child of my family.   

By and by, time dwindled away and I reached Tenth Grade. I began to have some bad companies both from the school and from the outside of the school. I did not know the consequences of having bad companies. As a matter of fact, I even emulated them. I thought that when they smoked cigarettes or cheroots, they were very smart. So I started smoking secretly so that mother would not know it. I knew well that mother would be very angry with me if she knew it.

I also began to enjoy playing truant from time to time. My friends and I once went to the mountain during the school time. For two times, we slept in a leafy tree on the way to our school all the school time. On some days, we sent our leave letters to our class teachers saying that we felt very ill.

One day, we planned to stay away from school. So I stealthily took a small football with me in order that we would be able to play when we felt bored sitting. There were altogether five of us – a young man from our village who had long dropped out of school, a Ninth Grader who liked alcohol very much, one of my classmates who was very fond of playing truancy, one of my cousins who was almost versatile in different kinds of mischief, and me. We went to the pagoda at the northern end of the village where there are some other shanty shelters. Once, the shelters used to be the hermitages for the monks who did sacred deeds. There is a cemetery across the main road. We stationed in one of the shelters, regarding it as our venue.

Although it was sunny that day, we did not stay out for long lest someone who was familiar with us or our parents might see us. Especially, I dared not go out to play with my football. When it was about one o’clock in the afternoon, I felt so bored inside that I happened to go out in the open air without looking at the surroundings. After a while, I saw a woman who was one of my neighbours passing from the footpath on the other side of the fields from the pagoda. I saw her face clearly and so did she. She looked at us for a time while she was going forward.

After about half an hour, I saw her return to our village. She glanced at us several times while she was walking. Around two o’clock in the evening, I heard my mother rush towards me, repeating angry words. I could not find any appropriate word to describe my fear at that very time. I felt like a thief caught red-handed. My face and all my body would have been pale. As soon as I learnt that mother came for me, I rushed inside the only room of the shelter out of great fright.

But mother had already known that I was there and so told me to come out. When I was hiding inside for quite a time, she came inside out of intolerance and gave me a series of lashes with the stick that she had brought with her. I became frightened out of my wit. I started crying at the height of my voice, praying her not to beat me anymore and promising her again and again not to play truant from then on. She drove me back home with the stick in her hand while she was pouring out angry words at me all along. I happened to look at her eyes and found tears well up in her eyes, too.

Thereafter, I greatly repented about my truancy, and tried not to stay away from school. Mother did not speak to me until the evening and sat on the house with a pensive, worried look. I knew that she would be thinking about me. She would surely have worried about my future. She might have thought about having my schooling quit as she had to work very hard for our livelihood as well as for our schooling. She did have great expectations for us. She believed that we could achieve whatever we wanted if we persevered. She wanted us to become doctors and engineers. They were also her beliefs and for them to be fulfilled, she would do whatever she could because she is never a quitter. But now she would almost have had to give up her dream about me!

Thinking of these things, I began to have much more pity on mother. I wanted to repay her unfathomable gratitude by doing my utmost best in my studies. That evening, I made up my mind to try hard in my lessons to reach my sisters’ levels of success in the forthcoming standards. Because of her admonishments with a series of lashes, I was egged on to try so hard as to be promoted from the status of a poor student to one of the top students in the class. Because of those series of lashes, I was able to pass the matriculation examination with three distinctions. It was also due to mother’s lashes that I became a B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) graduate and now an M.Ed (Master of Education) graduate.

Now I am serving my country with my knowledge. I did not become a doctor or an engineer as mother had expected me to be. But I am now an educated person who is satisfyingly devoting his time to beautifying his students’ lives with his knowledge. I am very proud of being a teacher now. Mother sometimes cracks joke at me saying, “I’ve never dreamt of you becoming a teacher. I thought you would be just a drunkard.” But every time I see her saying so, I find satisfaction, joy and pride in her eyes. If she did not punish me immediately when I played truant, I would surely have become a drunkard or a kind of good-for-nothing guy by now. All I am today is nothing but the result of the series of her lashes. Million thanks, dear mom!

By

Zwe Thit (Rammarmray)

(This short story was published in 2011-2012 Annual Magazine of Yangon University of Education)