C. Christine Fair translates a powerful story originally written in Punjabi by Amrit Kaur depicting the power of hunger and the curse of fear.
Roldu had heard from the day laborers who worked with him that some girls from a well-to-family had love marriages. And worse yet, they eloped. The parents’ reputations were trashed at the police stations. Moreover, people would gather to gossip about them. They were unworthy of the most basic of social courtesies. Thrashing all social norms, the foolish girls forgot the love of their parents and siblings. Roldu was stunned when he heard this. Roldu had his own daughter who was sixteen or seventeen years old. Roldu was afraid. When he came home in the evening, he saw Golu, the neighbor’s boy of some four or five years, standing near his daughter, Nikki. She was telling him something very affectionately. When Nikki saw Roldu, she quickly placed something in the boy’s hand. The boy, hiding it in his undershirt, ran away.