by D.H.Pradeep copyright 2005
Roja's father urged her to walk a tight rope every day. "After all," he told her, "practice makes perfect." She knew that her father loved her and wanted the best for her. Mani knew that his dear Roja feared walking the rope. Sometimes the rope hung five feet high, other times ten or as much as thirty feet above the ground. Her father proclaimed, "It's all the same, Roja. It's the same rope - no difference."
Mani knew about hard work. His father and all the generations before him had farmed the land. Nobody had ever treated his family wrongly, because they were the largest farming family in the village. They had clout. Even so, Mani had dreams of another life. He did not want to be a farmer, so as a young lad he asked the village potter to take him on as an apprentice to learn this trade. The Master told him it would be hard work, but it was his choice to make.
The village potter taught him how to work with clay, but did not always treat him well. The Master believed it his right to beat his protégé if he did not perform well. For generations the low caste potters had been exploited by the higher castes; this included Mani's family as well. He demanded much of Mani. Mani had to choose between 'self-respect' and 'realizing his dreams'.
Over time, Roja's father became a good potter, the first of his family of farmers to become a potter. The potters in the village did not like him, because after all he was born to be a farmer. Although his family loved him, they also looked down upon him because he was a potter and they were all farmers.
The father moved to a town. He was not scared because he was a potter and knew that he had a better chance to survive in the town than if he were just a farmer. Then maybe he would have had to work as a labourer at some construction site.
Eventually, the father left his village and moved to the town where he knew he had a better chance to make a living. He threw pots well into the night; he hawked his works of art from dawn to late dusk.
When Mani's relatives came to visit him, they were surprised at his late hours. They had never had to work at night. They toiled at their farms during the day and by evening relaxed and had a good drinking or gossiping session, and then they slept. They could not understand why Mani lived like this, working both day and night. They were ignorant of this way of life. Mani worked the clay with his hands and created beautiful things. He earned a good living and was able to live in the City. They began to notice that Mani delighted in his work far more than they did in their farming. They felt this was "wonderful".
Mani married and within a year a daughter, Roja, was born. As a young girl, she loved to have fun, to run around in the fields and sing harvest songs. She loved plants. She admired the pictures of big green fields. The father was concerned about her. "Not the fields. Not for my Roja," Mani thought. So he started to teach her to work with clay.
"What fun this is," she thought. "It's like making pies of mud." Roja squished the clay between her fingers. She rolled it flat or made coils as long as snakes. But when Mani asked her to try to make a pot, she became distressed. She could not make pots; she could not give them their curves of perfection. Her pots collapsed in on themselves. She could not make them stand upright like those of her father. Mani taught her just as his Master had taught him. "You must center the clay." He gave corrective measures with the exact harshness that he had been meted out with his master, because that was the only way of teaching that he knew.
Mani, now a potter, earned his living making beautiful pots of clay. Roja still could not make pots - not any that could be sold. Mani continued to give advice, but wondered why she did not learn this art he loved so much. Eventually he came to the conclusion that his daughter did not love making pots. In fact, she didn't even enjoy playing with the clay any longer. He worried about Roja, "If she does not learn a trade, what will she do after I die?"
One day Mani noticed the people walking on a tight rope near the marketplace where he hawked his pots. "People throw money at their tricks - lots of money," he thought. Money always seemed secondary for Mani, even when he was younger. Making pots, while foremost for him because he loved doing it, was still a means of earning a living. "So, if not pottery," he thought, "then Roja might as well learn tight rope walking."
Neither Roja nor Mani knew anything about walking a tightrope, so he found a Master who would teach her. The Master told her she would have to practice at home. Mani liked to watch her as he worked on his pots at night. How many times did she fall? Afraid of heights, she cried. She asked her father to help her, to hold her hands while she balanced on the rope. Her father wanted to help her, but he could neither follow her nor lead her while she was walking on the rope. Why?
Because on a right rope, one has to walk alone.
