The Milkman, the Dying Wick and the Invisible Hand of Fate

February 2, 2008

The cult of romantically gyrating, flute-flaunting and flirting milkmen and milkmaids was started by the most lovable of the lot, Lord Krishna.

Cutting across centuries, that legacy still survives, romantic linkups often coming dangerously close to the house-breaking taboos of extramarital affairs.

The milk-gathering sprees of milkwalas, our doodhwalas—the ones who, in fact, collect milk almost seasonlessly in the wee hours to ensure that milk reaches kitchens irrespective of cold, heat, rain, or whatever other hand the weather player might draw out.

The poor fellow gets up very early, picks up his bucket and drums, and goes on his milk-collecting spree. And in these wee hours, many romantic linkups do crop up, which act like incentives and rewards for the poor guy apart from his meagre take-home, cleverly contrived by mixing water in the milk.

One such gawala is Devender, the 30-year-old, affable, jocular, high-pitched, fair-coloured, short, square-faced and average-featured milk boy.

On the coldest of nights, when the temperature is around one degree centigrade, he gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning and sets out with his bucket and drums on his bicycle.

Now, selling milk is the most important part of household budgets in lower-middle-class rural households, where agricultural income is always falling short of meeting the budget.

The women contribute to the meagre budget through their buffaloes and cows.

Their life is full of struggle.

The husband works on small plots of land, or in some small-time business, or in some poorly paying job. Most of them drink, cramped by worries.

The hardworking women farmers take some solace and excitement with milkmen like Devender in the dark night in the barn, and the milkman duly reciprocates by giving them ample opportunities of cheating him by mixing water in the milk.

When they are caught, the poor chap has to run away after receiving a few slaps by the fuming husband, leaving his bucket there itself. Meanwhile, the poor wife has to bear the full storms of the fistwork, but nothing can be put to an end by the fistwork alone. Love, lust and romance are beyond the fear of fistwork. 

Their -- the farmer women and the milkmen -- fates are interlinked in such a manner that they cannot pull out the plugs from their respective roles. So, after a lull, after the shocking incidents, the storm strikes again.

You never know in what manner your fate is going to be affected by the sneeze and easy or uneasy turn of some unknown being in some other part of the world.

Coming to my own specific worries. The visit, after that postponement, to Djibouti had been fixed for the 4th of February, and here come the circumstances with their suddenly cropping situational snares.

Inder's would-be wife's grandmother decides to slow down the wick of her lamp of life to the barest minimum—that deathbed type of situation in which the last flicker is afraid to go down and the fuel is not enough for revival.

So, while the good old lady fights at the brink of the two worlds, the visit, after much haggling and arguments, has been postponed again.

Now I simply realize maybe our fates aren't in our hands.

We had planned meticulously, but who could have planned for the old lady's illness?

Hoping against hopes, let us hope for the best, the proposed visit might still happen somehow. Otherwise, I will have to take flight alone sometime in February itself and try to salvage our tottering business cart there in the charming, exotic chaos of Africa.