Page 4 - My FlipBook

Biju had learned to read and write from Jeji Bapa, his grandfather, who had been taught many things when he had worked for a while in

the house of a local teacher.

Jeji Bapa had made mathematics easy for Biju by using skeins of yarn in bunches, sometimes adding all the blue skeins and subtracting

the yellow skeins and then doubling the reds and taking away the greens. Biju thought this was fun and temporarily forgot about

school.

Jeji Bapa also told Biju stories of how in earlier times wonderful cloths from their village, along with all kinds of other treasures, had

travelled on ships headed for Bali, in a far-off country called Indonesia. These voyages were called Bali yatras. Biju loved hearing about
all the different kinds of things that were made in those times and wished that he too could travel far and wide carrying the beautiful
cloths woven in his village.

Biju’s father and grandfather came from a long line of handloom weavers who had perfected the art of tying and dyeing the long yarn
threads before they were woven. But it was hard work. Unless Biju, along with his mother, sisters and cousins, helped with the work,

Bapa could never finish weaving the lengths of cloth he needed to sell to earn enough money to take care of the entire family.

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