Strength to Say No Read Online Free

importance of what Atul and Arjun are teaching us.
    Back home I say that I love school. My mother ignores my enthusiasm and asks me to wash the dishes and tidy the house. I obey out of fear that she will get angry with me. Her glassy eyes seem to bulge from their sockets. It’s time to go to see another doctor other than the one in the village – who, as my father says, only prescribes the medicines that he has and not the ones that she needs to get well. Baba is seated on a thick cushion and is mechanically rolling some bidis. He squirmsaround in all directions to find a comfortable position for his back. I suggest that he go to lie down for a few minutes, and I take the basket and roll some bidis so that he can reach his daily quota.

3
THE EVIL EYE
    I have the impression that the screaming is rending the sky and ripping open the moon. How many people are indoors? I don’t know. I stopped counting after the fifth or sixth person. In the courtyard of the house the neighbours’ children are terrified by my sister’s cries. The women weep; the men worry in silence. Some of them think to make themselves useful by praying and invoking the gods. Others tie up their livestock for fear that they will be scared by these terrifying noises and run off into the fields.

    â€˜We have to call a doctor,’ says one of the villagers.
    â€˜At this hour of the night?’ replies another.
    â€˜What for?’ say some others.
    â€˜These midwives have come from their village for us. Even though they’re from a different community they are childbirth professionals. It’s said that they can perform miracles, including when the mother is young or suffering intensely during the contractions,’ says a grandmother who has given birth to eight children.
    But that night there won’t be a miracle. Baba leaves the house with his arms hanging limp by his sides. Everyone looks at the ground, and the embarrassed crowd disperses listlessly. I creep towards the house, and through the half-opened door Ican make out my sister Josna surrounded by several women. She is motionless, perhaps already dead. The midwives hold the baby with its head down and pat it harder and harder. There’s no reaction from the baby. My mother is slumped sobbing on my sister’s chest. I don’t know if I ought to enter or go back into the courtyard with the other children. I decide to go back out. This is the second time that my sister has tried unsuccessfully to give birth. Perhaps this time she will even lose her life.

    My sister and I are very close in spite of there being nearly ten years between us. We are two partners who like to take care of each other. She looks after me when our parents are away, cooks my meals and takes me to the pond so that I can bathe. Josna is more than a big sister – she is a friend I can confide in, and we share all our secrets without fear.
    My parents introduced her to her first husband when she was twelve years old. He was a fellow who came from a neighbouring village, and his parents were farmers. He was neither attractive nor repulsive. He had an ordinary physique with fine down on his upper lip and hardly more hair on top of his head. His big, callused hands convinced my parents that he would be a good husband. His good qualities as a worker, someone capable of founding a family and of feeding it – that was the deciding factor in the eyes of my mother. The meeting took place at our house. His parents came to ask for the hand of Josna, who they had, of course, never seen before. To make a good impression my parents bought a quarter-chicken, a kilo of better quality rice than usual and some rotis spread with oil.Ma cooked a dish in a sauce. The discussion lasted several hours, and when the moment came to speak in concrete terms about the wedding the two lovebirds were invited to get acquainted.
    My sister was embarrassed – and he was, too. They sat on the pavement opposite