Rama and Rupa.
When I met Rupa, I had this uneasy feeling in the stomach. Stomach. Not heart or head beacuse I met her over lunch. Maybe that was my gut feeling.
So I met this 19 year old on a street in South Mumbai. I was waiting for her in her home, the pavement. She lives on this pavement with her mother, 4 aunts,7 cousins and grandmother, all of who were born on the same pavement, except the grandmother. The story is too common to be retold here...the beginning at least. Old lady moved into this street with her husband in their poverty stricken young days from another part of India.They came here to ride the famous rags-to-riches waves that brush the shore of Mumbai regularly. Only the riches never came. While the old lady had 4 daughters, old man drank himself to death. The daughters sat by their mother's side as she spent days, weeks, months, years eating what poeple gave her, sleeping when there was no food to be cooked or eaten. They begged to survive the day and waited for that wave to come and sweep them off the pavement to a life more comfortable, secure and meaningful. Youth came to the daughters but unlike for many of us, it did not bring ambition, or aspiration or that fire-in-the-belly to change their plight, to them. Their youth got them husbands, also from the street. 4 girls with 8 hands did not consider putting them to any use beyond holding them out waiting for food/money/luck to drop from the heaven. It didnt.The husbands drank themselves unconcious keeping the family tradition alive. The daughters had more daughers and some sons, no work, no income. Rupa is one of them.
Could it be possible that able bodied people find no work in a city hungry for hands for a full 40 years? The pavement leads to many homes, shops, mills and now malls. None of the daughters thought it worth a walk to any of these just to check if they fit.
A job was offered to one of Rupa's aunts, as domestic help in a nearby high-rise. She was bringing up a child on that pavement at that time so the opportunity meant money and contacts. As is often the case, one home becomes 2 and then 3 and soon you have a full 1000 rupees in the purse on the 1st of every month. Pocket money for many but a good foothold for those who could not be worse off. Yes it meant hard work, honesty and courage to keep going untill you get there. But for this daughter of the old lady cleaning a whole home for 300 rupees a month seemed too much. Gave it up in less than 30 days. Back on the pavement, saying she is better off sitting there 24 hours doing nothing, watching her child do nothing. The kid is growing up all right, just as she herself did, right there, with no education and no idea about what is, what can and could be.
Rama wakes me up with the doorbell at 7 am. She makes me a cup of tea even as she helps herself to one with an extra spoonfull of sugar. She needs it, certaily more than I do. Rama helps me run my home, while I help her run her's. But as my day begins with her doorbell, she is already a few hours through her's. She wakes up at 4 am, cooks for her family of 4 women, packs off her daughters to school and college, puts everything her ill mother-in-law whould need in order, and then travels a full 45 minutes by train to shake me off my bed. Married into the city as the second wife of a widower, she is the pillar of a family waiting to collapse after her husband died a decade ago. Left with a daughter,a step daughter,and a mentally unstale mother-in-law Rama stepped out of thier shanty after her husband died. With no education to back her, she took on what came her way and what she had hoped to do all her life, albeit in her own home. She cooks, cleans and does everything I need her to do, so I can do what I want to do. And mine is not the only home she helps keep in order.
Rama is now worried. Her step daughter needs to take up a job so she can support her in keeping them going. She asks me to counsel her on what to do. I offer to pay her fees so she can study further. Rama refuses. She must work and study, since she is now 18. Is she not worried about her daughter's marriage, I asked. No. No marriage untill she is capable of making it on her own. What if her husband dies like her father did. Will she wash utensils then? Anyway, the men who live in our locality and belong to our community are alcoholics. No point depending on marriage.
Rupa was lucky. Someone put her in a convent where she grew up away from the pavement. With shelter and food and education untill she passed class 12, Rupa returned to her birthplace with new hope, for me. Now, I thought, comes the moment of realisation. This family is now set to finally begin the journey to a hard but good life. To vindicate the promiss of Mumbai. She managed to get a job at a call centre. A full 10,000 rupees a month. Night shift, so better opportunity for a double income. Office pick-up and drop so no overheads. This is it, I thought. It cant get better. I didnt.
Rupa quit in less than a month. Night drive to office in the office cab, was not safe she told me. But hundreds of girls are falling over each other for these jobs,I told her,and all of them travel at night, even I do. No, she insisted, her family didnt think it was safe. Her family that sleeps under the street light, on an open road didnt think a call centre job was safe. And Rupa who grew up on charity in a hostel in another city agreed. But the job could get her a room in a slum at least, I argued. No, she argued back. Home means rent. And deposit. The street is free. And they are too many to sleep in one room anyway. So what do you want really? I asked.
'Someone should come to help us. The government maybe, or the rich people who live around this pavement. We have been here for decades now, how can they not feel for us'. How can I help I asked. 'Could you help us get the free food on the homeless card we have?The ration shop does not give us anything on this. We even met the corporator of this area...he said....and then...' I lost the rest of the conversation.
Back home Rama is worried again. She has realised that soon she will get old and her hands may not be of much use to her. She wants to know if it is too late for her to learn English.
- Prachi Jawadekar Wagh
May 18, 2008
The struggling poet says:
I took pity, gave a fourth of my wealth in charity
duty done, my place reserved in heaven
for someone I helped heal
I didnt know I would meet in Hell, those who I helped steal
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Why I die a thousand deaths when someone claps for Raj Thackray.
He said ‘Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it.’ And they clapped.
He said ‘Inquilab Zindabad.’ And they chanted in unison.
He said ‘Quit India’. And they threw themselves in the movement.
He said ‘as the world sleeps this midnight hour, India awakes.’ And we declared ourselves Indians. Free.
What a bloody waste of time and effort that was. Those men and the generations who followed them into getting us a country. A free country. 595 states fought each other for their little princedoms. The British smiled. Who needs to conquer a country where people are more than eager to kill each other anyway. Lets just pit them against each other and soon they will be parasites unable to breathe without us. What a farsighted people the British were. We meet their expectations even today.
It would have been better if Marathis, Biharis, Punjabis, Tamilians had fought and got their own individual independence. We would be spared the trouble of uniting billions and then dividing them again in less than 50 years of getting that bloodsoaked freedom.
Today we clap for Raj Thackray. So by that logic Gandhi should have asked only for the freedom of Gujarat. Why did he waste his time touring every village in every corner of India and striving for their freedom as well. Bhagat Singh was then, a regional leader who was only moved by the death of Sikhs in Jallianwala Baug. What did he care about the rest of us. And the Swaraj Lokmanya Tilak was referring to was actually the right of Marathi speaking people to live and work exclusively in their state. And the biggest loser was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Poor old man spent his energy uniting people speaking more than 18 Languages, following more than 8 religions and ruled by more than 500 princes. Sorry Sardar, but we don’t want to live as one nation. We want to live in our own narrow mini countries where we all speak the same language, wear the same clothes, eat the same food, pray to the same God. Whoever said there is beauty in diversity, forget about unity. So what if nature herself thought it important to have different species of everything to sustain and make this planet as lovely as it is.
Maybe we don’t fully realize what we have because we got it for free. You and I had to pay nothing to become free. So it is not worth much to us. Free Indians are the world’s most thankless lot. What was handed down to us was not pieces of land to which we could claim ownership. Freedom was an opportunity to now live and work for ourselves, not as individuals or communities but as a nation that could write its own destiny. It was the responsibility to now work for progress, not mine and my brother’s but of all those who are the children of our founding fathers.
Sorry you people died for us. Sorry, but we didn’t want any of this. Actually we are not worthy of your sacrifice. Because the colonial ghosts are now such a part of us that we will speak in English but not in an Indian language that is not our mother tongue. We don’t mind migrating to another country if brings us prosperity. But letting another Indian set foot in our state, no sir that’s not done. And how can the Brits or the Yankees blame us for taking away their jobs? That is against the spirit of freedom, isn’t it? We want open societies to accept us, be we certainly cannot become one. And don’t even start about culture. We respect our gods so much that every Ganeshotsav we coerce people into paying for our booze for those 10 days. And we even beat our drums and bollywood item numbers in the immersion procession so loud especially when it passes a mosque. Ganapati loves this kind of hooliganism. (Maybe because nobody told you that Ganapati is North Inidan himself, he is Shiv and Parvati's son no? So is Gautam Buddha, Ram and Krisna.) We also celebrate these festivals where ever we go, to Delhi, Hyderabad, Banglore or United States of America. But hey you cant have Chatt puja in my land. That is not MY festival, and you will corrupt my culture by praying to YOUR god. Your festivals have political agendas, mine are plain faith even if large political cut-outs are used for decoration. And you spoil my city with your slums and cabs and pan shops. So what if I cannot do without my maid or driver and I will not pay them enough so they can live in flats. I keep their income low and blame them for it. I will buy from the hawker who sells his wares cheaper than the authorized store no matter what his origin even if he encroaches public space. These are economic choices I make because they benefit me. I see no hypocrisy in it.
And Oh!The IT park in Banglore. I will now settle in Bangalore. I will call it Bangalore not Bengaluru. Nice weather, lovely city. And yes the meaty job. So what if that is not my home state. This is my country off course, I don’t need a visa. Oh please, I am not taking away the Kannadiga’s job. Its an opportunity I cant miss. Oh my god, they expect me to speak Kannada? That’s a bit much na!. They must think of the migrants who’s mother tongue is not Kannada. But I will teach my children Marathi and we will form a Maharashtra Mandal so we can have cultural programmes together. Oh no, I am not hurting their culture, I am just preserving mine. Oh what double standards we have.
And yes my relatives from America who cannot speak one clean Marathi sentence are more Indian than my neighbour from Bihar. The rich can migrate off course and become richer. But the poor cannot. They are condemned to die poorer, where they are born. The fruits of freedom are for those who can afford them.
This then is what we made of our freedom. The right to exclude. To take but not to share. Who’s pride is it when Amartya Sen was awarded the Noble. Certainly not Maharashtra’s, he is not Marathi. Marathis should not join the Armed forces and die needlessly for North Indians or any other Indians.
So what if the politician who I cheer for protects the very slums he blames for making my city ugly. So what if he says they are taking away my jobs when he took money from me to bring them back, and brought Micheal Jackson to perform ‘culturally rich’ entertainment from it instead. His men bash the poor cabbies, and enlist them a day later into his party. He allows the migration of Marathis to far away suburbs so he can build homes for the rich on prime plots. Those who buy the up-market homes need not be Marathi mind you. This two faced bigot is our Hero.
No city in the world is migration proof. Opportunity attracts people, its simple economics. The city needs them as much as they need the city. That we did not plan well to accommodate those who run our machine is our fault not theirs. That real estate prices remain high to benefit few while the majority lives in sub-human conditions is proof of our misplaced priorities.
In an age when we are moving briskly towards achieving economic well being, such divisive elements work overtime to make us sick, Thackray or Azmi or whatever name they answer to. Empowering the weak to face the strong is one thing, creating artificial and emotional ridges for political gain is quiet another.
Children of independent India inherit the duty of Nation building. To pool together our strengths for common good of all of us. To prosper as a people who are born with different abilities and resources but aid each other in hitting the goal. To further the struggle for Independence, to get freedom form economic and social bondage. If we choose to now break ourselves up into groups of language, religion, class or caste there cannot be a bigger slap on our own faces. If a Maharashtra can be exclusively for Marathis, soon a proud Konkani will bring the Western Ghats to divide Konkan from rest of Maharashtra. And soon the townies will see themselves as different from the suburbanites. There can be no end to fragmentation. It takes courage to unite, not to divide.
So when we applaud someone who is reciting the story of our own doom, I cannot but marvel at the orator’s magical spell, and the audience’s dim wit. And I die one more time remembering the real Heroes who now have to share their league with those who are out to undo their work.
- Prachi Jawadekar Wagh
The struggling poet says, 'lessons from history we shall not learn, we are cursed to light our own pyre and burn’
4 May 2008
He said ‘Inquilab Zindabad.’ And they chanted in unison.
He said ‘Quit India’. And they threw themselves in the movement.
He said ‘as the world sleeps this midnight hour, India awakes.’ And we declared ourselves Indians. Free.
What a bloody waste of time and effort that was. Those men and the generations who followed them into getting us a country. A free country. 595 states fought each other for their little princedoms. The British smiled. Who needs to conquer a country where people are more than eager to kill each other anyway. Lets just pit them against each other and soon they will be parasites unable to breathe without us. What a farsighted people the British were. We meet their expectations even today.
It would have been better if Marathis, Biharis, Punjabis, Tamilians had fought and got their own individual independence. We would be spared the trouble of uniting billions and then dividing them again in less than 50 years of getting that bloodsoaked freedom.
Today we clap for Raj Thackray. So by that logic Gandhi should have asked only for the freedom of Gujarat. Why did he waste his time touring every village in every corner of India and striving for their freedom as well. Bhagat Singh was then, a regional leader who was only moved by the death of Sikhs in Jallianwala Baug. What did he care about the rest of us. And the Swaraj Lokmanya Tilak was referring to was actually the right of Marathi speaking people to live and work exclusively in their state. And the biggest loser was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Poor old man spent his energy uniting people speaking more than 18 Languages, following more than 8 religions and ruled by more than 500 princes. Sorry Sardar, but we don’t want to live as one nation. We want to live in our own narrow mini countries where we all speak the same language, wear the same clothes, eat the same food, pray to the same God. Whoever said there is beauty in diversity, forget about unity. So what if nature herself thought it important to have different species of everything to sustain and make this planet as lovely as it is.
Maybe we don’t fully realize what we have because we got it for free. You and I had to pay nothing to become free. So it is not worth much to us. Free Indians are the world’s most thankless lot. What was handed down to us was not pieces of land to which we could claim ownership. Freedom was an opportunity to now live and work for ourselves, not as individuals or communities but as a nation that could write its own destiny. It was the responsibility to now work for progress, not mine and my brother’s but of all those who are the children of our founding fathers.
Sorry you people died for us. Sorry, but we didn’t want any of this. Actually we are not worthy of your sacrifice. Because the colonial ghosts are now such a part of us that we will speak in English but not in an Indian language that is not our mother tongue. We don’t mind migrating to another country if brings us prosperity. But letting another Indian set foot in our state, no sir that’s not done. And how can the Brits or the Yankees blame us for taking away their jobs? That is against the spirit of freedom, isn’t it? We want open societies to accept us, be we certainly cannot become one. And don’t even start about culture. We respect our gods so much that every Ganeshotsav we coerce people into paying for our booze for those 10 days. And we even beat our drums and bollywood item numbers in the immersion procession so loud especially when it passes a mosque. Ganapati loves this kind of hooliganism. (Maybe because nobody told you that Ganapati is North Inidan himself, he is Shiv and Parvati's son no? So is Gautam Buddha, Ram and Krisna.) We also celebrate these festivals where ever we go, to Delhi, Hyderabad, Banglore or United States of America. But hey you cant have Chatt puja in my land. That is not MY festival, and you will corrupt my culture by praying to YOUR god. Your festivals have political agendas, mine are plain faith even if large political cut-outs are used for decoration. And you spoil my city with your slums and cabs and pan shops. So what if I cannot do without my maid or driver and I will not pay them enough so they can live in flats. I keep their income low and blame them for it. I will buy from the hawker who sells his wares cheaper than the authorized store no matter what his origin even if he encroaches public space. These are economic choices I make because they benefit me. I see no hypocrisy in it.
And Oh!The IT park in Banglore. I will now settle in Bangalore. I will call it Bangalore not Bengaluru. Nice weather, lovely city. And yes the meaty job. So what if that is not my home state. This is my country off course, I don’t need a visa. Oh please, I am not taking away the Kannadiga’s job. Its an opportunity I cant miss. Oh my god, they expect me to speak Kannada? That’s a bit much na!. They must think of the migrants who’s mother tongue is not Kannada. But I will teach my children Marathi and we will form a Maharashtra Mandal so we can have cultural programmes together. Oh no, I am not hurting their culture, I am just preserving mine. Oh what double standards we have.
And yes my relatives from America who cannot speak one clean Marathi sentence are more Indian than my neighbour from Bihar. The rich can migrate off course and become richer. But the poor cannot. They are condemned to die poorer, where they are born. The fruits of freedom are for those who can afford them.
This then is what we made of our freedom. The right to exclude. To take but not to share. Who’s pride is it when Amartya Sen was awarded the Noble. Certainly not Maharashtra’s, he is not Marathi. Marathis should not join the Armed forces and die needlessly for North Indians or any other Indians.
So what if the politician who I cheer for protects the very slums he blames for making my city ugly. So what if he says they are taking away my jobs when he took money from me to bring them back, and brought Micheal Jackson to perform ‘culturally rich’ entertainment from it instead. His men bash the poor cabbies, and enlist them a day later into his party. He allows the migration of Marathis to far away suburbs so he can build homes for the rich on prime plots. Those who buy the up-market homes need not be Marathi mind you. This two faced bigot is our Hero.
No city in the world is migration proof. Opportunity attracts people, its simple economics. The city needs them as much as they need the city. That we did not plan well to accommodate those who run our machine is our fault not theirs. That real estate prices remain high to benefit few while the majority lives in sub-human conditions is proof of our misplaced priorities.
In an age when we are moving briskly towards achieving economic well being, such divisive elements work overtime to make us sick, Thackray or Azmi or whatever name they answer to. Empowering the weak to face the strong is one thing, creating artificial and emotional ridges for political gain is quiet another.
Children of independent India inherit the duty of Nation building. To pool together our strengths for common good of all of us. To prosper as a people who are born with different abilities and resources but aid each other in hitting the goal. To further the struggle for Independence, to get freedom form economic and social bondage. If we choose to now break ourselves up into groups of language, religion, class or caste there cannot be a bigger slap on our own faces. If a Maharashtra can be exclusively for Marathis, soon a proud Konkani will bring the Western Ghats to divide Konkan from rest of Maharashtra. And soon the townies will see themselves as different from the suburbanites. There can be no end to fragmentation. It takes courage to unite, not to divide.
So when we applaud someone who is reciting the story of our own doom, I cannot but marvel at the orator’s magical spell, and the audience’s dim wit. And I die one more time remembering the real Heroes who now have to share their league with those who are out to undo their work.
- Prachi Jawadekar Wagh
The struggling poet says, 'lessons from history we shall not learn, we are cursed to light our own pyre and burn’
4 May 2008
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