The Lost Beads of Sweat

 

Most of the people missed his real name. His lower caste defined a major part of what he was as a human being. To make it more specific, they called him ‘Kala’ suitably drawn from his dark complexion. For a proper, formal introduction, his caste stood as the surname whenever a misunderstanding arose about which ‘Kala’ was referred in that particular instance as every village had many people named as such. Hence, he became ‘Kala Chamar’ under this situation and got instantly identified; and immediately pushed into the corridors of unworthy, unimportant symbols in a caste-based society. 

Poverty straightaway gives you a mission in life, the mission to survive. You don’t have to give it too much of thought. From the earliest age you know it that you have to work to survive. That’s how most of the daily wage labourers arrive on the scene. He was no exception. He would happily take any job that came along.

Kala was a very diligent worker. His dedication to the work was usually praised to a fair extent. In a farmers’ society one has to sweat a lot while working to prove that you have given your all to the cause. He had plenty of this certification because he sweated like a well-meaning, fat pig. Well, even the saying had to be reversed here and people said even the pigs sweated like Kala.

He was very strong in built but his hair went thinning. The people had an explanation. His balding pate is meant to facilitate a smooth glide for the sweating beads, they said. After almost three decades of sweating, he had very well achieved the primary targets of a poor man. He had married and had three or four kids despite all the clashes, brawls and arguments with his wife. He had fixed a few bricks to settle his separate family life beyond the domains of his siblings. He also drank in the evenings just like majority of the labourers do at the end of the day, otherwise the night won’t provide rest and the next day will miss the action.

A problem arose in his early forties. He started sweating less. The people got suspicious about his dedication to the job. After some time, the amount of sweating plummeted down drastically. He isn’t putting any effort in work these days, the people gave their verdict. So they would go for younger labourers who sweated more profusely. As a result, his job assignments nosedived.

The reason he had stopped sweating was very simple. It had nothing to do with his willingness to give his all to the task. His high spirits to retain his status as the ‘sweating king’ by giving it all had ruined his knees. Now people also understood and consoled him that all would be well if he took another vocation that would make him sweat a bit less or not at all.

I saw him sitting on the steps of the tiny street shop massaging his unfaithful knees. It was damn hot and all and sundry, even those who merely took the trouble of taking out a needle and putting it back, were sweating profusely. So everybody looked very busy. Kala, but, wasn’t sweating. He had lost the tempo.

It was an exception to see him free at this time of the day, so I asked him about the reason. He tapped his knees and pointed out the culprits who had derailed his sweating life. Try something lighter, I told him and pointed out the counter of the shop behind him.

‘You can open a little provision store in the street. It’s very easy,’ I said.

The shopkeeper glared at me as if insulted over calling his line of job easy. Moreover, he must have panicked that I was planting the seeds of business rivalry in the street. If there was another shop in the neighbourhood his business would be halved.  

In any case, the momentum of three decades of hard work was still too much for the boring, sitting job of keeping a shop. He adopted the line of a wandering vegetable hawker in the streets. He had his rickshaw carrier piled with vegetables and pulled with, to make everyone happy now, with some beads of sweat. The competition was tough. In every street he had a rival bellowing to sell his fresh, leafy greens. The migrant Bihari hawkers were better than him in this regard. They shouted in so many unique cries to draw people’s attention that even the most dull-minded housewife would be forced to crane out her neck and ask what the matter was and ended up buying something.

Kala had been a calm giant. Pitching for sales wasn’t his forte. He mumbled his list of items like an old, retired bull in dull notes that didn’t challenge anyone’s eardrums. So he would pass the streets almost unnoticed with his little bit of beads of sweat. On top of it, his rivals had so many sugar-coated words that it appeared they were fleecing the clients. In comparison, the people found Kala rude and hence refutable.

The sum and summary is that his cart usually returned to his yard with enough load that would surely go stale. So the family had to force feed themselves with cooked vegetables to avoid losses. Overfed with stale vegetables, the couple quarrelled more and the children turned noisier. Kala was literally on his knees but he won’t give up, after all he had been an illustrious sweater. His past still had some rays to inspire him to work more, I mean sweat more.

Hugely overfed with leftover stale vegetables that found a place in the family’s stomach instead of the dustbin—because the latter would have been a catastrophe—he could afford to take a week’s break and think of a strategy that would outfox his rivals. He thought and thought and thought. Now this indeed brought him a lot of sweating because thinking was totally new to him and unknown territory. He found it the toughest job. He even thought of taking ‘thinking’ as an occupation because it left him with big beads of sweating and made him the Kala of yore. But then another gem of a thought convinced him that this ‘thinking’ job will leave his stomach empty. So he had to abandon the idea. And he thought more and got more sweat.

A passing farmer got very happy looking at the shiny beads and said, ‘You seem to have regained the old habit of working really hard, do you need a job now?’ 

His hitherto unharnessed mind gave a rich crop. Kala had the gem of an idea that would bring tears of agony to the eyes of his rivals. Even in the happiest spirits, he was not in a position to share it with his wife and children because that may aggravate the situation a bit. It had to be swiftly carried out, promptly like a coup.

Next morning, he got up early, bathed and went to the town vegetable market to purchase an assortment of items. Coming back home, he crept around like a stealthy tiny mouse to the best product in the house, which competed with the cheap television set in defining their lives. It was the sky blue refrigerator, the purveyor of coolness in the scorching sands of their lives.

He started putting out the meagre items contained in it. His wife stood with her fists on her prominent love handles by the side of copious belly fat and looked ready to use them if the need arose. The fridge was empty and she was just ready to pounce upon him for this mad act. Kala, relieved from the emptying job, walked up to his wife and offered the rarest of sweet endearment he could manage with his gruffy notes. In any case, she retorted with her shrillest notes and punched away his gentle shove and hit hard at his nape.

As the scheme stood open, there was literally mayhem in the house. The children cried and his wife shouted abuses and hollered out her ill destiny for getting married to him. But Kala was not to be dissuaded. After all, he had given it so much of thought, even to the extent of getting profusely sweaty again. She could feel it that he was so determined that if she tried to stop him, he would first break something in her body and then walk over her limp physicality to try loading the refrigerator all by himself. And that would imperil the shape of the dear object. So she called a few neighbours to help her husband.

The refrigerator was loaded onto the rickshaw cart. Kala expertly fixed it with ropes so that it wouldn’t fall but could be opened at will. Then he crammed it to the guts with his vegetables and set out to beat the rivals.

‘People need cool, fresh vegetables. Now they cannot ignore my stuff,’ he proudly declared.

People surely noticed it. People certainly like fresh vegetables but given a chance they would prefer a fresh spectacle even more. The refrigerator grabbed more attention than the fresh vegetables inside. The spectators shouted, clapped, whistled, hooted, booed and put out many varied exclamations born of a new exhibition. The sale was almost the same as earlier but he surely stole the limelight. 

He was moving with great effort because now the load was manifold. His body was getting the very same sweat beads of old times. It was putting a great strain on his knees. The ice in the freezer was thawing. There were beads of cold inside the container and beads of heat on his body. I saw him pulling his heavy load on the road outside the village. He looked like an old bull lurching to some destination. Since he was sweating so profusely, it meant he was giving his best to the trade. And many were the people who remarked, ‘Kala indeed is very hardworking!’