My parents and the family

My parents had a child marriage in the 1980s in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. My father was 17, and my mother was 13. Back then, you never really had a say in your own marriage. When my father turned 22, he brought my mother to live with his extended family. As usual, there were a lot of fights in the joint family, and my parents knew it was not a good environment to be in and raise a child. So, my parents took a train 1300 km away into a small town called Ghugus in Maharashtra without my grandfather's consent. My father, who never completed his 12th grade, got a 'Loader' operator job to load coal into trucks at a nearby coal mine. My parents used to live in a rented quarter, and it was not a permanent solution. That was when my elder brother was born. They lived there for about 5 years.

My birth

When my mother was in the final days of her pregnancy with me, her younger brother was about to get married. He lived with my maternal joint family and was going to get married there. But that was 1300 km away from here in Ghugus. My mother waited at some local relative's home, expecting my delivery. When there was no sign that I would be coming soon, Mother convinced Father to get on a train to attend the wedding in her village.

It was the 24th of April in 2001 when my parents and my 5-year-old elder brother boarded a train that would take 25 hours to reach its destination. April is probably the hottest month of Indian summer, and train travel in the sleeper bogie with a pregnant woman is the last thing anyone has ever considered. But that is what happened. My family boarded the train from Chandrapur Station in Maharashtra and intended to arrive at Ballia Station in Uttar Pradesh. From Ballia station, it was only a matter of travel by rickshaw to reach my maternal joint family.

We were only 200-300 km away from our destination when mother started experiencing labor pain. It was the early hours of the morning, almost 5 am. The train had just left the station Prayagraj (then Allahabad). It was headed towards the next stop, i.e., Varanasi, via a small station named Gyanpur Road, where it does not stop. After Prayagraj, the bogie in which we were was left almost empty. Seeing my mother in labor in the nearly empty bogie, my father could not ask for help. My father says, "I knew only our 'kuldevi' (the ancestral goddess who has protected our family for generations) could help us then. So, I prayed to badaki-mai (lit. Oldest mother, the name of our kuldevi)."

His prayers were answered when he saw two young women approaching our bogie. The women, apparently, were looking at the whole situation from afar from another bogie. They asked my father what was happening, and he explained by just waving at my mother. Without asking any more questions, the women tied a bedsheet around the cabin near my mother. They helped my mother lay on another bedsheet. All my father remembers after that was my first cry after a few minutes, beyond the bedsheet.

I was born at 5:37 am near Gyanpur station on a train on the 25th of April 2001. By this time, some crowd from another bogies had gathered around my compartment. One of the two women pulled back the bedsheet curtains and handed me to my father, saying, "Congratulations, it's a son." The crowd, seeing this, erupted in joyous laughter. The women were covered up to their elbows in blood and bodily fluids. After cleaning themselves and my mother, they left our compartment and were never seen again. With all of this happening, my parents could never ask them their names but that they were traveling to Jaunpur. All this time, my elder brother was sleeping. So, my father woke him up, telling him he had now got a younger brother. He was overjoyed.

To get me and my mother vaccinated, we had to get off the train in Varanasi, still at least 200 km from our destination, Ballia. At Varanasi, my father paid a coolie 4 times the usual amount to pull his trolley slower while transporting my mother across the platforms. We hired a rickshaw outside the station to get to the nearest hospital. The rickshaw guy took us to a costly hospital and then recommended us to a different place if we wanted to save money. He then dropped us off at the Maldahiya Vaccination Centre, where I had my first shower and vaccine. The nurses at the centre were amused when they listened to the whole story of my birth. One of the nurses suggested naming me 'Prayag' because I was born near the holy city of Prayagraj. That is how I got my name.

Thinking my mother could not be tended to well when there was an ongoing wedding at the maternal joint family, we decided to go the paternal joint family (Both families lived in neighboring villages). The paternal family was not expecting us and knew little about my mother's pregnancy. They were surprised to see a newborn child in my mother's arms.

We stayed at the family home for a few months, and by this time, my father had already lost his job back in Ghugus. So, after a few months, he left the village to return to Ghugus to make some living arrangements. He bought a piece of land for cheap in Ghugus and constructed a house. When my mother, elder brother, and I came back to Ghugus, we moved into our newly made home. My father had to earn money, so he bought a few cows and started selling milk to earn a living, which is the primary source of income for us to date.

The present

I am 23 years of age now, and I am very grateful to my family for providing me with an excellent education. I am pursuing my goals and dreams, all because of my family's hard work and acts of kindness from strangers who were there for me and my family at the right time and place. I don't know the two women who helped me bring me to life on the train. If they hadn't been there, I would not be present here telling you this story.