She Deserves A Smoother Road

Tomorrow will mark 20 years since the deadliest terror attack on US soil.  During the commemorations, there will be much talk of "heroes."  And that awful day produced many, some of whom didn't survive the day. 

I will say more about them tomorrow. (Don't worry:  The post will relate to bicycling as well as that terrible event.)  Today, though, I want talk about another hero who had yet to be born on that day. 

Jyoti Kumari, self-portrait

 

Jyoti Kumari bought a purple bicycle for the equivalent of $20.  Unlike other 15-year-olds, however, she didn't pedal it to school or work.  Instead, she used it to bring her father home.

To say that was no small feat was an understatement.  Mohan Paswan was a big man, carrying a big bag.  A migrant worker had been injured on a job near New Delhi, about 1200 kilometers (700 miles) from his family's home. Compounding the difficulty of that situation was the lockdowns, then some of the world's strictest, that had been imposed on India.  So, even if he could've worked, there was no work for him.  He was stranded, broke, just as India and the world were plunging into the abyss of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Home, for him and Ms. Kumari, was a village near the Nepalese border.  Their journey would take them along a route where people younger and healthier than Mohan died in the brutal heat, or were run down by trucks or trains.  And there would be few places where he and Jyoti could find food or water.

Still, Kumari managed to bring her father home.  She pedaled all the way back, with her father riding in back.  Along the way, some locals jeered or castigated her for pedaling while her father sat.  But others offered help, including the use of their cell phones so she could let her mother know she and her father were on their way.

After they arrived, she garnered a lot of media attention, from the likes of people and outlets far bigger and more famous than yours truly.  The Prime Minister gave her the National Children's Award, which included a medal and about $1300.  There were offers and promises of jobs, scholarships and other kinds of help.  And Onkar Singh, the chairman of the Cycling Federation of India, invited her to a tryout for the national team, which could mean a trip to the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Singh's offer still stands. Kumari, however, is more anxious to finish her studies (understandable, especially given that she comes from a lower-caste family).  To do that, she would need to catch up on academic work she missed while helping to care for her father.  She has been taking some lessons from a local teacher, but her village's school remains closed.  

And some of the offers and promises of help were not fulfilled.  So, while her family were able to build a bigger house with water and toilet connections and sustain themselves for a while, some of the money was used to pay off debts.  Now "the funds are drying up," explains Mukesh Kumari Paswan, Kumari's brother-in-law.  He was an X-ray technician but, like everyone else in his family, is out of work. "We don't know what to do now," he says.

As if the family weren't facing enough difficulties, her mother isn't well and minor physical activity leaves her out of breath.  Worst of all, in May--one year after Kumari brought her father home--he died of cardiac arrest.  

Whether or not Jyoti Kumari takes up Onkar Singh on his offer, one can only hope that the road ahead is less difficult for her and her family isn't as difficult as it's been.  Any teenage girl who can pedal her father home through the conditions she endured certainly deserves better!

Memorial Day: Heroes And The Lionhearted

Today is Memorial Day in the US and some other countries.

Most of the commemorations that mark this day--the parades, airshows, ballgames and other gatherings--have been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I am sure many events are being held online and that, where restrictions have been lifted, people are having picnics and barbecues in their yards, in parks and on beaches. In that sense, at least, this Memorial Day is like earlier ones.

Another way in which this day is similar to earlier Memorial Days is that the word "heroes" will be used a lot.  Most of the time, it refers to those who fought, and sometimes died, in the nation's wars.  Now, while I believe that the only true advance the human race could ever make is to get rid of war and beat swords into ploughshares, as the book  of Isaiah implores us, I believe that those who gave their bodies, and lives, in service of human dignity deserve to be celebrated as heroes.  They include, among others, those who fought against Hitler (who, I believe, came closer than anyone else to embodying pure evil in this world) as well as those who are experiencing the trauma of treating people who are sick and dying from something we can't see.  Also included are those who are helping communities function, whether by making or delivering whatever goods or services people need, or helping others access those things.

The other day, I heard about another real hero.  She (Does anybody use the word "heroine" anymore?) hasn't worked in a hospital ward or nursing home because, to be fair, in most places she's not even old enough to get the education or training she'd need to do such things.  She also hasn't brought food to 90-year-olds languishing alone in their apartments or educated people about hygeine.  In fact, her courageous act had nothing to do with her larger community, although she has been feted as the "Lionhearted" throughout her country.

Jyoti Kumari is a 15-year-old girl from Sirhulli, a village near the Nepalese border.  Its state, Bihar, is one of the poorest in India, which is saying something.  Her father, Mohan Paswan, like many men from the area, is a migrant laborer who found himself out of work and stranded near New Delhi, about 700 miles away.  

He might've tried what many in his situation have tried: walking back to his home village.  Younger and healthier men have perished in their attempt to return to their families and friends:  They have been run down by trucks or trammeled by trains.  Or, they have simply collapsed in the brutal heat of the countryside.

Jyoti's dad was injured and barely able to walk--in addition to being out of work, almost out of money and without a means of transportation.  He could have been another casualty of the pandemic and, being of a low caste, some of the world's worst economic inequalities.  But, as it turned out, his daughter possesed qualities--ingenuity and sheer grit--that were more powerful than anything that he was suffering.

For the equivalent of $20--the last of their savings--she bought a purple bike.  She jumped on it and he perched on the rear.  Along their 1200-kilometer journey, she borrowed cellphones to deliver this message: "Don't worry, mummy.  I will get Papa home good."

Jyoti Kumar, her father and the bike.  From BBC Hindi.

(I think that should be an inscription on a medal:  The Purple Bicycle?)

That she did.  To say it wasn't easy would be an understatement: While Jyoti is strong and confident on a bike, having done a lot of riding in and around her village, she was hauling her father, a big man with a big bag, through unrelenting sun.  Just as daunting, perhaps, as the weather and terrain were the taunts she endured from locals who believed it was ridiculous or just wrong for a girl to pedal while her father sat in the back.

But there were also strangers who helped them.  Also, by the time they got home, the news of their journey had spread all over the media--and Onkar Singh, who called her while she was resting up.

Mr. Singh is the chairman of the Cycling Federation of India.  He's invited her to New Delhi for a tryout with the national team.  "She has great talent," he said.

She said she's "elated" and really wants to go.

Jyoti Kumari has certainly earned the opportunity.  And, I believe, Onkar Singh knows a hero when he sees one.