Jaipal is around 45 but looks an old man of 60. Hair
beaten by all types of winds; teeth gone in munching the stones that life has
to offer; facial features roughed off like furious desert storms hitting
against a lifeless rock face for years. Life has very little to offer to this
daily wage earner from my neighbouring village. Still he gives best to the
society around; makes this darkening world a little brighter with his
self-motivated commitment for the labour tasks at hand.
His friends call him 'Tihadi', i.e., the one who has been to the notorious jail in Delhi.
But as you watch this bony figure heaving massive pulls at the conscience-lorn
rope at the worksite, you don’t find any justification for the title. Well, the
famed Indian justice system mostly catches the smallest fish and allows the
whales a safe passage. He was caught ticketless in a local passenger train to
Delhi. Fine was to the tune of 500 rupees. 'But my whole being is not even
worth that much!' he pleaded before the checking squad. So he landed up in
Tihar jail to earn the nickname. The babus
made him do a hard labour to earn his roti
and dal. There was no encashment for
his fruitless work, of course. Unconcerned now, he stretches out every sinew of
his frail body to make my world better at the construction site.
For the marriage of his eldest daughter he had pooled
almost his life-long earnings, and put them in his hovel. There was a fire and
his 60,000 rupees turned to ashes. But then sometimes people get sentimental; thus
many came forward with a hand of charity. Money and gifts were collected by the
villagers. This single good-countering-bad stroke of destiny has, may be, kept
the thread of honesty tied to his being.
He has not even a bicycle. I ask him the reason.
'There is no space to put it at my place,' he says. I look for signs of a joke
on his decimated face. But he is damn serious. His fellow labourers bear
witness to this fact. His only possession is a tiny 10×15 yard depilated room.
So where is the room for poor man's merc, i.e., bicycle? I think it does not
need more emphasis to decide that he is amongst the poorest of the poor in the
country. There is this scheme of BPL card in rural India. The card-holder
enjoys many benefits like subsidized wheat, rice and kerosene from the public
distribution system. If one can arrange some patronage and blessings from the
mighty village strongmen and pradhan,
one can get 25,000 rupees for house construction as well. But for such big
benefits you must in a position to pay back many times more in other forms. He
does not fit anywhere in this give–take equation. So despite many rounds for a
BPL card he is found the least eligible for it.
The world may not care about him. The economic breeze
blowing coolly in India may not kiss to vaporise the sweat beads on his
hardened, bowing back. Swanky cars may glut the roads while he does not even
get his bicycle. Scamsters may swindle public money to the tune of hundreds of
millions and go scot free, while he spends 10 hardworking and insulting nights
in Tihar jail. He may stay in a tiny hovel while he helps construct swanky
apartments for others. He, but, has got his reward. The reward of goodness.
Despite countless promptings to the contrary, his basics have not changed. He
is true to himself. And this truth to the self is the fuel that is pulling the
cart of this big, bad and still worsening world. It will collapse when the last
of his type will say bye to this world.
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