Jaba

In my parental home, they were really very poor then. My mother used to go out to sell bangles and brought us up. My father died when I was very young. I was a child when he died and my mother brought me up by struggling very hard. My elder sister was this high, my older brother this much. We are three sisters and one brother. My mother brought us up with great hardship. She couldn’t send us to school. Then my older sisters were married. Only I remained. Then my mother told me that I had to stay with her as I was very young.

Now, since she went out to sell things I thought I should learn handicraft. So I learned to weave date palm leaves into mats. I would make these mats and sell them and our family expenses were met somehow. Then I was married. When I came to my husband’s home, he said: “you won’t have to weave mats anymore.” Then I asked how our family would run? And he told me we would manage if I learned to paint scrolls. I started painting, we were quite poor. Then he taught me to sing, as well. Then I learned to sing and paint. He writes songs, also. My husband writes songs. He helped me a lot and pushed me upwards. Then he asked me to accompany him to Delhi. Rani and the others were in Delhi then. Now Rani took me to the fair and put our names down. We sold some scrolls. Since that time our condition has improved some. I shouldn’t say some, but quite a lot. Oh yes, our children have learned from us. But my youngest daughter paints from her own ideas. She is really smart. Wherever we go, to Delhi or Bombay, she will sing, paint, do everything on her own. If I tell her “Dear one, you take some rest, stop painting.” She will tell me “It will be good for me if I paint. I feel good when I paint; I can learn new things.” That is what she is like.