Perhaps they, too, will grow up to take to respectable professions like electric wiremen and soldiers. Today, Sikander Kale is essentially indistinguishable from other villagers, the non-Pardhis, in the area. He looks like them, earns like them, lives among them. That can't be said of the Rajale group, who live a good half kilometre outside the village limits. But perhaps in a generation that will change too, as it did for Sikander.
Children going to school is a start.
That's encouraging, too. What isn't so encouraging, in a time of war, is what Sikander Kale knew about it. Or didn't know. Especially with a son doing some of the fighting. Asking that question was like opening the sluice gates on a dam.