The Packet of Rice

'Where had you kept the rice?' asked the manager of the school. The child said, amid his tears, 'In that room.'

The class teacher explained, 'He kept it where he always leaves it. Another child in his group had kept his in the same place and that packet was there.'

'Did you search everywhere? Isn't it anywhere?'

The child: 'I looked all over. It wasn't anywhere.'

The teacher: 'Didn't you look for it as soon as class was over?'

'I did.'

The teacher: 'This is really shameful! It's very distressing if children come to school just to steal food!'

The head teacher comforted the child. 'Let all the children come. I'll question them. I'll find out who it is. And make sure no one does such a thing again. Don't cry, child. If you're hungry, take your books and go home.'

The teacher: 'Will you go alone?'

The child: 'I don't want to go now.'

'Then go and sit down in class,' said the head teacher. The child obeyed.

The class teacher discussed the incident for quite a while longer and requested the head teacher to take it up seriously. The head teacher agreed to everything.

The bell announcing the end of the afternoon recess rang. The mentors who, to get over their tiredness, had stretched out and gone to sleep on the benches that had emptied when the children went out got up, rubbed their eyes and sat down in their places.

The children who had been running around playing in the schoolyard, ignoring their hunger and the hot sun, came back to the classrooms, perspiring profusely. The benches filled with the fortunate ones who had come back after partaking of their kanji or rice and the unfortunate ones who had come to school knowing full well that nothing had been cooked at home that day. The satisfied children who had eaten their packets of rice and the little ones who had drawn and drunk water from the neighbouring well to take the edge off their severe hunger sat down in their places. Among them was the child who had lost his packet of rice.

The story of the stolen rice spread through all the four classrooms in the school, filling them. Each child sent his guessing powers racing towards a number of other children.

'Sir, Balakrishnan says it was I who took the rice and ate it,' complained a child. He turned to the child who had accused him and said in the same breath, 'Thief, it's you who stole the rice and ate it! Thief!'

Gopalan said to Joseph, 'It must be Pappu who ate it up.'

Mathai said, 'I won't keep my rice here any more.'

This matter remained the topic of discussion among the children for a long time.

The teachers looked closely at the faces of the little ones seated before them to find out the thief. The head teacher, who was in charge of the affairs of the school, began to walk around, stick in hand, pursuing the investigation. He tried all the levels of persuasion--kind words first, then serious questioning and finally force--but to no avail. He then counseled the children, 'Theft is a sin. You might be able to hide it from human eyes. But you can't hide anything from God. Stealing is an evil habit. If you do it without meaning to, you must confess and ask for forgiveness. Then I will forgive you. And God will forgive you as well. If you do something wrong and are able to hide it one time, you will want to do the same thing again. And you will thus become thieves. Haven't you seen policemen catch thieves and take them away? You there, haven't you seen that? Is there anyone who hasn't seen that happen?'

The children: 'Yes, Sir.' 'No, Sir.'

'Ah! That's what I said. Tell the truth.'

No one confessed to having done anything wrong. The child who had lost his rice turned around to see whether anyone had confessed.

But no one had.

The head teacher then asked each of the children, 'Did you take it? Or you, or you? The next child. You?'

'No.'

'No.'

'No.'

'I went home for lunch.'

'I brought my food.'

'N…no.'

All the children denied having done such a thing. The teacher asked around a hundred and eighty children individually. Then he gave up. He felt ashamed. His colleagues respected him. The children worshipped 'Fourth Class Sir', the teacher of the fourth standard; they feared him. The villagers were proud of him. The manager thought highly of him. The school inspector was satisfied with him.

The head teacher, who had been unsuccessful in his mission, sat down in his broken chair, his face dull and pale. He had no enthusiasm for anything. He made a mistake in a sum he did on the blackboard. When he taught geography, he refused to accept the right answers the children gave him. It was only when a colleague came and told him that it was past timeit was already ten minutes late---that he remembered to ring the bell announcing that school had ended for the day.

Everyone left. The man who swept the place waited to lock the building. The head teacher was writing and he kept writing until it was past dusk!

He finished writing and came out.

That night, as the manager was enjoying listening to the radio after dinner, he received this letter:

Respected Manager,

A theft took place in our school today. Someone took a packet of rice that a child had kept aside for his lunch and ate it up. It was shameful. Such a thing has never been heard to happen before. After all, it is thirty years since I came here. Today is the first time such a thing has taken place. If it was to steal, there are so many things in school that are more valuable than a packet of rice.

Someone who was hungry must have taken it. But there were so many more packets that had more rice in them than this one. If it was not a very small child who took it, his hunger would not have been satisfied. But would a little child do such a thing? Even if it was an older child, how unbearable his hunger must have been for him to eat up someone else's food! Children who had eaten something in the morning would never risk doing a thing like this. If a child had eaten nothing in the morning, his mother would have provided some food at least for his lunch. He would not have had to steal. If they had to starve morning and noon, mothers would not send the children to school--what if they collapsed on the way! A child might steal a slate or a pencil or a book. He might steal a mango or an orange. But to steal rice--and that too, without even knowing to whom the packet belonged--no, it is impossible to imagine that a child would do that. It is a terrible insult to look a child in the face and ask whether he stole rice. Among our teachers, there are some who eat nothing at noon. How could we imagine that they would do this? It was not the children. Or the teachers. And no strangers came here. Then who was it? I?

Yes, it was I.

It was I, who am in charge of running this school, who did this.

I, who am responsible for the intellectual welfare of around a hundred and eighty future citizens, for showing them the right and the good way to live.

I, who control and direct five teachers who work with me.

I, who punish all the misdemeanours in this school, who must be a model to everyone.

It is I who have to shape the next generation and make them good people who stole the food meant for a child's lunch and ate it---a mean thing that only a dog would do.

You may feel not only contempt for me but anger as well. I might have brought disrepute to your school. You might be thinking that you will have to dismiss me from my post. None of these things seem very important to me. The face of that six-year-old child, pinched with hunger, his tears flowing because his rice was stolen, gives me pain.

Just try and imagine why I did this, the act of a dog. I would have done it earlier. It was not that I did not have reason to. I just did not, that's all. If my companions do not do what I did, it is not because they do not need to; it is because they are afraid of an evil reputation. I have gone beyond that. I happen to have been born; should I not somehow live? I have worked for thirty years and do you know how many people have to be cared for with the twelve rupees you give me? Why should you know, isn't it? No one need know.

But even if you do not want to know, all of you will one day.

Twelve rupees that have to last for thirty days for a family of eight---and in these times when everything is so expensive!

I have to be a model to the children. I have to govern a school I have to work all the time on tasks that never end. I have to live a decent and respectable life. I too have a mother and a father--who are old and incapable of working. I too have a wife and children--who are dependent on me. I too have desires and emotions--like you.

I took a child's rice and ate it up. Was I stealing? Perhaps I was. I tell you now frankly--after I had some kanji yesterday morning, I ate no food at all for twenty-eight hours. Exhausted with work, I thought I would collapse and fall down and I took the three or four mouthfuls of rice belonging to a child--never mind who it was--who must have had some food of some kind three hours earlier. Maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was a sin. When I go to the next world, maybe I will be forced to answer for it. Maybe I will have to answer for it in this world as well. I will do so.

But tell me this too: What else could I have done?

K. N. Pillai has published thirty-seven books, most of them short story collections. He won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. Gita Krishnankutty has translated many short stories and novels from Malayalam into English.