Jaswant Singh

At the tender age of 11, Jaswant Singh should’ve been in school. Instead, he rose early each morning, before the others in his house and got ready for a day’s work.

He missed school. He loved being in the room with his new teacher Yashwant Rao who had returned from America where he had been a successful entrepreneur and had given up his entire life to return to India. Yashwant had received a great education at the leading boarding school in India, after which he had gained entry to the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, where he excelled in electrical engineering. He went on to get his Masters at a premier institution in the US, before getting a high flying job at one of the largest high tech companies in Silicon Valley.

But there had always been something missing in Yaswant’s life. He wasn’t quite sure what it was. But it all came together when he returned to his village in the Punjab one very hot summer. He paid a visit to the school where he had first become interested in maths and physics. All the current students had been told that someone famous was going to visit them, so they had to make sure they looked their best, “for this most famous man who is going to come to talk to us,” Jaswant Singh told his mother and father. “Maybe I too can become famous like him.” He sincerely meant it.

But that was before his father hanged himself from a tree in a field.

His father had borrowed money one year from a middleman, who had returned to demand repayment. But that year the harvest was bad. The monsoons upon which most of India depends, failed to arrive on time. And when it eventually did, the land was so parched that most of the water ran off into the gulleys and streams and rivers never really being soaked into the ground. Jaswant Singh’s father didn’t have the money he had hoped.

When he borrowed the money at the exorbitant rate of 8%, he felt he could repay it because in his mind the monsoons had never failed two years in a row. He wasn’t a betting man, though he strongly felt that the odds were in his favour. But that year the monsoons failed to return on time for a second year in a row.

Jaswant Singh wanted to see his father, but the other villagers prevented him from seeing his body. They had found him hanging from a tree in one of the distant fields. He had felt that there was no way out for him. He had reached the end of the line and death was the only alternative. His family was devastated. Jaswant Singh knew he was now the only male left in his family, and at the tender age of 11 it would fall upon his shoulders to rescue his family from certain financial destruction. The Indian government compensated the family for his death, but it wasn’t a lot.

And so, he got up every morning before even the rooster had awoken and read the only book there was in his home. A book about man’s first landing on the moon. It wasn’t a big book, but it was filled with illustrations which he loved. He read slowly. One page per day. He wanted the book to last forever. Once he had finished the page, he looked back through all the pages he had already read, to see if he had skipped over any words or paragraphs, or maybe there was a sentence he had failed to understand. Then he would close the book and get ready for work.

It was August in the Punjab. The sun beat down relentless on the ground as all the famers, including Jaswant Singh, looked to the skies each and every day and prayed that the rains which were already late would eventually arrive. The middlemen had taken possession of most of his family’s farm. Jaswant Singh pleaded with them so that they would leave his family some small piece of ground where he could grow a few vegetables, so they didn’t starve. Reluctantly they agreed. In return, Jaswant Singh promised that when he grew up and became a famous engineer, he would remember their kindness. They were amused with his take on life and decided to let him have a small patch of land around his home, in the village where he was born, and where he now felt he would live and eventually die, even though in his heart of hearts he knew he would be an engineer.

Jaswant Singh looked up at the skies with thin wisps of clouds on their outer edges and felt they were a promising sign. “The rains will be here soon,” he told his mother who had never recovered from the death of her husband. “I think the rains will come,” he told her as he hugged her every morning.

But Jaswant Singh also remembered the day he eagerly went to school. The day that famous man came to talk to them. And he didn’t disappoint. Jaswant left there filled with the promise of his future. Yes, he was going to be a space engineer and his whole village would be proud of him. He too would be just like that famous man and come back to his village and teach. He had his future all planned. His parents were excited for him, they knew their little Jaswant Singh would be a success in life, and they would be thrilled that he would bring such pride to his family. But then disaster struck.

Jaswant Singh tucked his torn blue short sleeved shirt into his torn brown shorts, which were too small for him and walked outside into the small vegetable patch to begin his day.

It was during a morning on a hot August day while he was involved in his never-ending quest to rid his vegetable patch of the endless weeds, he heard a voice behind him. A little shocked that someone would disturb him, he looked around and saw that it was the famous man who had talked about space engineering at his school and had returned to teach the children maths and physics.

“How are you doing Jaswant Singh?” The boy didn’t want to stop work, because he knew his family depended on him. His mother was still grieving, even though it had been several months. All the plans she had had, were also lost to the world. “Can you spare me a moment?” the teacher asked.

Reluctantly, Jaswant stopped, “only for a minute,” he replied as he put down the crude implement he had been using to dig in the dry dirt. “Would you like some water?” he asked the teacher noticing him sweating profusely.

The teacher shook his head, “no thank you. I’m just not completely used to this heat anymore. I will though,” he paused for a moment, “I’m sorry to hear of your loss. But may I say something to you?” Jaswant Singh didn’t answer. He knew he was going to be asked to return to school, and he also knew that it was impossible. “No, I’m not going to ask you to come back to school. I understand what has happened, but I want you to think about something. Will you?” Jaswant Singh thought for a moment before he nodded his head. “I will be here for the entire summer. I know you can’t come back to school. But how about I come here in the afternoon, after I finish teaching,” he stopped and looked around and then continued. “We could sit under that tree because you can’t work in the afternoon it’s too hot. So, I’ll come, and we can sit under that tree and I will talk to you for a little bit about your future. You’re a very bright boy. I don’t want to lose you, the way you lost your father.”

The boy hadn’t realised his father’s name would invoke some deep level of pain and he suddenly sat down on the ground and began to cry uncontrollably. Yashwant Rao kicked himself for being so insensitive and went over, picked up the boy and hugged him. Suddenly Jaswant Singh felt he wasn’t alone in the world anymore, but he couldn’t stop himself from crying. The teacher continued to hug him and eventually when Jaswant Singh began to apologise for crying so much, he put him down and Yashwant wiped his eyes with his hands.

“There’s no need to apologise. I want to be your friend. You’re a very good boy and I know all you need is help and you can go far in this life.” He then looked around and asked, “where’s your mother?” the boy pointed to his home. “Come with me,” and they walked to the home where Jaswant Singh had been born and lived. A little home with just two rooms. A kitchen and another room which doubled as both a bedroom and living room. They entered and Jaswant Singh’s mother got up from making a meal for her and her son. Yashwant Rao introduced himself.

Jaswant Singh finished school at the top of his class and went on to college in Delhi, before he sat the entrance exam to the IIT. With the help of money collected in his village, he paid for a little room in Old Delhi so he could study for the entrance exam. Yashwant Rao paid the middlemen the money that was owed to them and they returned the land to the family. Jaswant Singh was privately tutored by Yashwant Rao, because even though he had the land back, someone had to farm it.

Many years later, armed with an advanced degree in electrical engineering from a prestigious university in England, Yashwant Singh returned to his village where he became a teacher.

There are more than 10,000 famer suicides reported in India every year. 2020 was the worst year on record. In the Punjab, 3 to 4 farmer suicides were reported in the local news every day. When the farmer commits suicide, the government compensates the family, however, if the woman commits suicide, there is no compensation. A woman cannot be considered a farmer. Source: Businessinsider.com.