I’m sad. A little while ago Pitho and his wife came to see me. Pitho is one of the villagers who sold us this land. But since tribal land cannot be bought, it was “donated” to Dakshinayan. Anyway, Pitho came to get his son admitted. I asked him where he was when admissions were going on? He should have at least informed me that he wanted his son to be admitted so that I’d have kept a place for him. But I suppose because he is one of the “landlords” he expected preferential treatment. I told him admissions were over and that he’d have to wait for next year. He was upset, of course, but what he said really upset me. He accused me of giving preference to the non-tribals. He claimed that the project was of no use to the community. Naturally, I got upset too. Pitho and the other villagers have benefitted a lot from the construction activity on the project. For almost an entire year they have been employed in it. When Pitho wanted to borrow money from the money-lenders I gave him Rs 3000 so that he would not have to borrow money at exorbitant interest rates. His son studied in our school and as and when he needs anything he gets it from here. And yet he accuses me of giving preferential treatment to non-tribals! How ungrateful can one be? What is most upsetting is that he seems to think he has done me a big favour by giving us his land. It isn’t just his to begin with. And then he got paid whatever sum he asked for! No bargaining. And yet.....

At times like this I feel like throwing in the towel and moving away. Why have I spent all my life trying to serve these people who don’t appreciate what’s being done for them?