BIBIPUR
THE SINGH FAMILy home is a one-storey building of brick and cement on one of the main streets in Bibipur, a village of 1,000 in Punjab, northern India. The house has cracks in its walls and a roof of wood and mud that leaks during monsoon season. It was built about sixty years ago, and every decade or so since, whenever government workers have repaved the road outside the house, they’ve simply added another layer of asphalt on top of what was already there. Over time, the road has grown higher and higher, and the house has seemed to sink in contrast.
Kushandeep Singh was born here in 1999, and by the time he was a teenager, the house sat well below grade. Whenever it rained, water would stream in off the road and the family would rush to try to hold it back as best as they could with brooms and buckets.
Like just about everyone in Bibipur, the Singhs are farmers. The family owns a small plot — twelve acres of wheat and rice with a few cows and buffalo. On warm days as a child, Kushandeep would run off with his friends and bathe in the same pond the cows lolled around in. As landowners, the Singhs were far from the poorest in town, but they were a long way from wealthy. Fourteen people lived in the three-bedroom house: Kushandeep, his younger sister, and his parents in one room; one set of grandparents in another; and his uncle, aunt, and cousins in the third.
Esta historia es de la edición September/October 2021 de The Walrus.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición September/October 2021 de The Walrus.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.
The Upside-Down Book
In her new novel, Rachel Cusk makes the case for becoming a stranger to yourself
Pick a Colour
BACK HERE, I can hear a group of women trickle in. Filling the floor with giggles and voices.
Quebec's Crushing Immigration Policy
Familial separation can have devastating consequences on mental health and productivity
The Briefcase
What I learned about being a writer from trying to finish a dead man's book
In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It
Thousands have died trying to cross into the US from Mexico. Each year, activists follow their harrowing trek
Blood Language
Menstruation ties us to the land in ways we've all but forgotten
Dream Machines
The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Invisible Lives
Without immigration status, Canada's undocumented youth stay in the shadows
My Guilty Pleasure
"The late nights are mine alone, and I'll spend them however I damn well please"
