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kabita

kabita
mridha , west
bengal

Kabitha Mridha (32) is sitting cross-legged on her bed. She wears an ankle-length gown in a multi-coloured pattern of red, yellow, green, grey and orange. In front of her are an open notebook and two textbooks. She holds a ballpoint pen in her right hand. The bed is covered with a magenta bedsheet. A mosquito net hangs over the bed and around her. It is a transparent white nylon material with a purple and pink floral design on it.
Kabitha, wearing a deep purple churidhar-kameez with candy pink and light blue flowers embroidered on it, is squatting in a room with her left leg stretched out. The kameez sleeve is elbow-length with a large frill at the edge. Her right leg is bent at the knee and her right foot is placed on a large white bedsheet spread out on the floor. She has gripped one edge of the sheet with her hand and is stitching a pattern on it. Skeins of red and brown thread lie on the sheet, which has brown floral embroidery on it.
Kabitha in a purple churidhar-kameez is kneeling on a pathway, feeding chickens and a duck. Her left hand is placed next to a steel vessel on the ground and she is stretching her right hand out towards the birds. The duck is purplish black. Some of the chickens are tan coloured and some are greyish black. The pathway is lined with plants and creepers.
Kabitha wearing a multi-coloured gown is kneeling forward on a mud-paved floor, next to a pile of firewood. She is pushing a few sticks of firewood into the mouth of the mud chulha (oven). There is an aluminium kadhai (wok) on top of the chulha and smoke is rising all around it. Behind the chulha is a half-wall made of mud, on top of which is a latticework made of wooden reapers to let in natural light. On the floor beside the chulha are a dozen green ridge-gourds.
Kabitha is sitting on a concrete bench facing her sister-in-law Shefali (37) and niece Jaya (16) who are sitting on another stone bench opposite her. Behind them is a large pond with plantain, palm and mango trees growing around it. Kabitha wears a red gown with green embroidery around the neck and down the front, and with a red and gold border. Shefali is smiling at Kabitha. She wears a printed sari in red, orange and light brown and has draped the pallu over her head. Jaya wears a gown in an orange and maroon pattern; she has draped a red and white checked shawl around her shoulders. Her hair is tied up with a pink clip at the top of her head.
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“I would really like to be employed. I’m very good at stitching”

After her father Sundar Mridha died when she was in second grade, Kabitha Mridha (32) from South Parganas District, West Bengal stopped going to school. Her father used to carry her to and from school because she was born with a severe locomotor disability. But her education continued with the help of the next generation of their family!
 
Kabitha continues to live in her birthplace, Bally village in Gosaba taluk. Her voice softening with affection, she tells us how her “bhaipo” (nephew) Joydeep (18) and “bhagni” (niece) Jaya (16) had helped her improve her reading and writing skills once they started going to school. She says she still consults them when trying to read a storybook. They are the children of her elder brother Randeep (40) and wife Shefali (37). After her mother Amela died seven years ago, Randeep has been her sole support. He is a farmer, like their father, and owns a patch of land on which they grow rice, potato and vegetables.
 
Kabitha remembers how her parents used to fulfill every one of her childish wishes — toys, clothes, eatables, anything she craved for. “I would ask, and they would buy it for me,” she says. “During the Durga Puja festival they used to take me around to see various decorative pandals.” After Sundar died it was Amela who used to take care of her.
 
Kabitha’s day is spent in helping Shefali with household chores: cleaning, washing, cooking, feeding the cattle and doing some light work in the field and garden. Her pastimes are listening to songs and occasionally watching programmes on a neighbour’s TV. When we spoke to her she had just returned from Bangaon where her married elder sister Namita Mallik lives. Namita, who wanted to give her a break from her routine, had taken her to Bangaon by bus and dropped her back.
 
Kabitha enjoys joshing with Jaya and Joydeep — doing “hasi thatta”, the Bengali for sharing jokes and leg-pulling. They sometimes take her around the village on their cycles. But they don’t need to anymore because she has her own mode of transport! Her hand-operated tricycle, gifted by an EGS writer and his wife, arrived at her home a couple of days before the New Year. Sunderban Foundation procured it for her, and its chairman Prasenjit Mandal, who reached it to her, sent us photographs and a video of Kabitha trying out her new ‘gaadi’ (vehicle). Through the Foundation the couple also gifted a tricycle to Somnath Mondal, whom readers might remember from an earlier EGS story about this 11-year-old who lives with his uncle in Bally because it has a good school.
 
Kabitha is keen on gainful employment. “I can take on any work related to stitching,” she says. “I am really good at it.”
 

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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