Kusum

Kusum was born on 12 June 1990 in Khairi Kalan, in the Narsinghpur area of Madhya Pradesh, where the state government and the local panchayat ran the ration shop, the school, and the paperwork that decided who counted as poor. Her family belonged to an Adivasi community that kept its own village rites while also joining the wider Hindu calendar. At home they spoke Hindi mixed with their own community language, switching without thinking depending on who stood in the doorway.

Her father, Dilip, worked as an agricultural wage laborer. When there was no work nearby he went off with other men, sleeping on floors in other villages. Her mother, Jamni, did the housework, cooked, fetched water, and took wage work when it was available—cutting, weeding, carrying bundles, whatever the landowners offered. They lived in a separate small house rather than under a joint roof, though relatives were close enough to appear when there was news.

Kusum was the third child. Sarla, born in 1985, ran the morning more than Jamni did: she lit the chulha, shook ash from the pots, and tugged Kusum’s hair into a tight parting. Champa, two years younger than Sarla, had a softer way with Kusum. If Kusum sat silent with a blank face, Champa still talked to her anyway.

Her earliest memories were of waiting. Waiting for Jamni to return from the fields, for Dilip to come back from a work trip, for the neighbor’s radio to finish the news so the song program started. She sat near her grandmother Hira’s courtyard in the evenings. Hira did not live with them, but she drew Kusum in, offering a steel cup of thin tea and telling stories that moved between spirits and relatives as if they were part of the same family. Hira kept a corner for household offerings: grains of rice, a smear of vermilion, a few flowers when they had them. On certain nights she poured a little mahua liquor onto the earth before drinking, touching her fingers to her forehead after. Kusum watched every movement. She asked too many questions. Hira answered, or told her to listen and stop frowning.

A younger brother, Ramesh, was born when she was three, followed three years later by Mohan. He did not last the year. A fever took him quickly. Kusum remembered the sudden hush and the crowded room. Afterward Jamni kept a tighter hold on the other children. Money went to medicines more quickly, and talk of illness stayed in the house. Kusum began to check the faces of everyone who coughed.

School started for her in 1997. She went in a faded uniform dress, hair oiled and braided, slate tucked under her arm. On some days she stayed. On others she drifted home early, saying the teacher was absent or her stomach hurt. She struggled to keep the symbols on the page in her mind. When the teacher made her read aloud, her throat tightened and her eyes watered. She stopped raising her hand. By the time she was a teenager she could not reliably read a notice or fill out a form. She learned to recognize a few letters and numbers by shape—enough to identify a bus destination if someone pointed at it—but not enough to hide her embarrassment.

Kusum spoke little in groups. At weddings she sat near the wall and ate quickly, leaving before people started asking questions. She hated being pulled into songs and dances. A neighbor once joked that she had swallowed her tongue. Kusum snapped back sharply, loud enough that heads turned. Champa laughed afterward, not to mock her, but because the insult was so exact. Kusum laughed too for a moment, then looked around to see who had heard.

The 2002 drought tightened the village. Jamni took more days of wage work when any appeared. Dilip’s trips became longer. Kusum listened to adults arguing about grain prices, about debt, about whether the ration shop would open on time. She began waking at night with her heart racing. She lay still and counted breaths so no one would hear.

Grandmother Hira died in 2008. After the funeral Kusum’s sleep worsened again. She started sitting outside alone at dusk, near the spot where the neem tree threw its shade. When someone called her name suddenly, she startled hard enough to spill whatever she carried.

As Kusum reached her late teens, Jamni and Dilip pushed toward marriage arrangements. The family had little land and little leverage; marriage was their form of security. Kusum avoided the talks. She stayed inside, or went to draw water even when the pots were full. When relatives came to look her over, she kept her eyes down and her face blank. Sarla scolded her for it in the way Sarla scolded everyone: direct, to get results.

Kusum married Suresh in 2011. The ceremony blended local practice with mainstream Hindu rites—turmeric on skin, red powder, a garland, and a small puja with incense and offerings. Her family made sure the ancestors were remembered too, a few grains and a splash of liquor in the courtyard before the women ate. After the wedding she moved to Suresh’s place, still rural, still within the same world of fields, contractors, and panchayat decisions.

They lived with Suresh’s parents and an unmarried younger brother in a house smaller than hers had been. Marriage required performance. Kusum could not manage it. She did not chat with neighbors, did not soften her voice, did not smile on cue. Suresh wanted her to attend gatherings, to respond to his relatives, to behave as if she belonged. When he demanded sex she went rigid. Afterward she lay awake and replayed each word said that day, certain she had made a mistake that would spread beyond the house. Some nights her chest tightened so much she sat up, gulping air as if she had been running. Suresh told her she was dramatic and useless. When she answered back, he shouted louder. His older cousin Raghunath came more than once to “settle” things, speaking as if Kusum were a stubborn child rather than an adult woman.

Between 2012 and 2015 Kusum moved with Suresh and others for seasonal work. A labor contractor, Shankar, arranged transport and payments that arrived late or not at all. During these trips Kusum’s curiosity woke up in spite of her fear. She watched how other women cooked in camp, what they carried, how they spoke to men when no elders were listening. She listened to different songs. She learned which shop sold cheap bangles and which dhaba served tea strong enough to keep her awake. She also stayed quiet, keeping her head down when men stared.

The marriage broke in 2016. It was not a single argument. It was a pile of them. Kusum left and returned to her parents’ place. She arrived with a small bundle of clothes and a face that did not ask permission. Dilip was angry, then worried, then angry again. Jamni took her in because there was no other place to put her. Sarla treated the separation as a problem to manage: who would talk to Suresh’s side, what would the village say, how would they feed another adult mouth.

That same year cash became hard to find after demonetization. The family’s work was paid in crumpled notes; suddenly nobody had the right notes. A bad agricultural season followed and wages thinned. From 2016 to 2019 they leaned on a moneylender, Babulal, borrowing for ration grain when the shop’s supply ran out, for a doctor visit when Jamni’s back pain flared, for school expenses for younger relatives. Babulal came to the door and spoke in a calm voice that made Kusum’s stomach twist. Even when Sarla or Ramesh handled the negotiation, Kusum heard every word. Ramesh had become the family’s main earner by then, taking seasonal work on construction sites and sending money back when he could. At night Kusum counted how many rupees were owed and how many days of work would never cover it. When she thought of facing Babulal herself, her breath shortened and her hands went cold. By 2020 the debt had shrunk to a manageable sum, paid down through Ramesh’s wages and small sums Champa’s husband contributed.

During a migration season in 2018, Kusum met Lalita at a brick kiln camp near Jabalpur. Lalita carried water and stacked dried bricks; she was quick with jokes and had a way of touching Kusum’s wrist as if it were nothing. They sat together after the evening meal, backs against the kiln wall while it cooled, sharing peanuts. Kusum felt steadier near her than she had felt near any man. Their closeness became physical, kept hidden behind the workers’ tents and in the dark hours when the supervisor was asleep. Kusum’s fear of gossip rose with her attachment. When the kiln season ended in early 2019, Lalita left with a different labor group heading to Gujarat. The connection ended with no fight, just distance, and Kusum carried it without speaking of it.

The pandemic lockdown in 2020 pushed everyone back onto the village’s thin supports. Ration grain mattered more. People argued over names on lists. Kusum needed help with Aadhaar-linked steps and benefit messages that came to phones she could not read. She waited for Champa or Ramesh to interpret, then grew angry when they took too long. Sometimes she accused them of hiding things from her. Sometimes she apologized the same evening, voice flat, eyes fixed on the floor.

Dilip died in 2022. After the funeral rites, the household’s balance shifted. When a dispute arose over a boundary marker near the family’s small vegetable plot, there was no man to go argue with the neighbor; Ramesh was away working, and Sarla had to handle it herself, which the neighbor resented. Kusum took on more cooking and cleaning, more water trips, more childcare for visiting nieces and nephews. When Jamni’s joints hurt, Kusum rubbed oil into them, then snapped at her mother for not resting. Jamni snapped back. They made peace by morning because there was work to do.

By late 2025 Kusum lives in the area, moving between her mother’s house and Champa’s place nearby. She keeps her hair oiled and tied tight. She avoids the busiest market hours. She sits in the doorway at dusk and watches the road, listening to the shift of voices as people pass, catching both Hindi and the older words that stay inside the community. When her chest tightens, she steps into the courtyard, splashes water on her face from the handpump bucket, and waits until her breath slows. Then she goes back inside to roll rotis for the evening meal.