Reminisence of My Childhood

I was one among seven siblings and we used to stay in a village. In our village the sugar cane crushing season was a huge affair. Sugar cane would be crushed manually as well as by machines. We would all be very eager to go and watch the proceedings as it meant that we could chew on the fresh cut cane as well as drink the delicious fresh juice.

There was this rule that we could not go out anywhere without informing either of our parents. One day when we were all sitting down for lunch we noticed that my elder brother was missing. My father had gone out for work and my mom immediately guessed where my brother had gone. we finished lunch and my mom decided to wait outside for my brother to return. He came back around 3.00 pm with a vessel full of sugarcane juice and two or three sticks of sweet succulent sugar cane. When my mom demanded an explanation for the broken rule he retaliated saying that he was the master of his destiny and nobody need question him. Mom kept silent and went inside and served him food. Just as he finished eating my dad returned and my mom blurted out the whole incident. My father a strict disciplinarian, was enraged at his audacity after he had broken the rule and took the sugar cane sticks and started thrashing him. The sticks all broke into pieces. Hearing this commotion, my two sisters and I got up, went to the place and hid behind the Singer Sewing machine, pleading for him to stop. All our pleas fell on deaf ears. After he was done with our brother, he came towards us and gave each of us a thrashing with his belt. Later he explained that the beating for my brother was because he had broken a rule, and the ones for us was because we supported him.  I will never forget that day, for it taught me something. Rules are made for our safety and we had to pay the consequence if we broke them :)