A Full-baked Sense of Security

 

The boy is from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh and sells coconuts on the pavement at Sonipat in Haryana. There is an awning of polythene sheet and bamboos, a rickety wooden diwan and the heap of coconuts. He wields the big cutter knife with throwaway ease.

He is a nice talker and offers a free conversation as you sip the coconut water. He talks pretty intimately, so much so that the next time you visit his set-up, you come as an old acquaintance even though it’s your second visit only. Well, that is the hallmark of a good salesman. These are inborn traits beyond the reach of business school logic.

‘Life is far better here. Less crime. People don’t bother you too much. I have taken a cheap room on rent nearby and go there just for cooking, bathing and toilet. I sleep here on the pavement and there hasn’t been any problem during the eight years of my stay here.’

Little does he realise that of late Sonipat has almost overtaken his home state in mischief and tumbles on the wrong side of law. But then one’s sense of security and comfort about a place is driven by the weight added to one’s purse by that particular place. All is well as long as you feel the weight in the wallet. So he is right in his judgement as one can see a few customers around him.  

He is dark with taut face muscles on his eager face. His hairstyle gives an inkling that he takes himself seriously to a decent limit. His caste, creed or communal identity is clouded by his primary identity of just being one of the struggling millions who pack their bundles of deprivation and move outstation. They treasure their little vial of happiness. Their eyes always looking at the pleasures of the relatively better offs, which acts as a big driving force enabling them to keep pulling the heavy cart.

We are talking about the gems of hard work and the inherent richness of economically poor people who dig a well daily to drink water. He holds the pavement strugglers in very high esteem.

‘The rich people are very poor in afterlife. All that they have to see is finished in this life only. Their quota of rewards, pleasures and happiness lasts during this life only. Nothing is left for the other world,’ he points to the sky.  

‘The poor are very rich after their death. A poor man will get compensation for his sufferings in the afterlife...there...in jannat!’

Well, for me it would be swarga. Now I get a clue to his religious identity.

The idea of afterlife surely helps the poor people in pulling the cart. This world may not have enough for them. They then take a huge leap of faith to shift the destination into the unfathomable depths of the skies.

‘Did you ever feel unsafe here? Some incidence or happening?’ I ask him.

Now he looks even more confident as he replies. ‘Never, it’s a very safe city as I told you. There is a very kind policeman uncle in the neighbourhood. He is very helpful and always asks me to tell him if anyone bothers me. What a nice man he is! I really like him. Coconut water is really good for one’s health. And such good people must be kept healthy so I offer him one coconut every day before he sets out for the thana. He also understands that I give it to him out of genuine respect so he doesn’t insult my feelings by offering money. I will make him the fittest policeman in the city.’

‘Oh, you are lucky to have a friendly policeman,’ I congratulate him.

‘True. Especially an honest policeman,’ he enthuses.

‘How do you know that he is an honest one?’ I ask.

‘It’s very easy! He has told me that he has never taken a bribe in his career. And I fully believe in him. He is such a nice guy,’ he is all praise for his protector. 

Well, I also believe him. A free coconut every day must be enough to fetch contentment to the policeman. And anyone would feel safe after becoming the part of a fit policeman’s book.                                          

The Rich Princes of Poor Ghettos

 

The laundry man, the fruit seller, the shoe mender, the juice maker, a pan and cigarette stall, a subzi puri booth, a chhole kulche cart, the roadside barber, the coconut seller, the key maker, a sugarcane juice crusher, queues of autos, more juice makers, rickshaw pullers, tea stalls, tiny carts laden with mouth-watering spicy samosas and the changing faces of the people as they pass through this dense urban spot.

The list of its constituents is almost endless and makes it an intense spot of struggle and survival. Life here is static as well as in a flux: static in terms of the very same old struggle, weariness and challenges to make the ends meet by these little protagonists of this tiny stage; in a flux also as the squeezing urban behemoth continuously pushes in and pushes out scores of people through this small spot. Life is slow as well as fast simultaneously. And so are the undercurrents of pleasure and pain. There is a smoky tension in the air. Everyone is on taut nerves. A massive heaving of effort is going on to somehow survive in the urban jungle.

It’s a journey where hundreds of steps count to just one of those in the bigger world. You huff and puff for miles after miles, while in reality you are still at the same spot of your misery. Happiness, the dream puller, is forever cajoling millions after millions. It’s very easy to get seduced by the thoughts and notions of happiness. Sadly, we usually ditch whatever little we possess in the present to avail happiness in future.

These institutions are built upon the pavement with gunny sacks, wooden planks, plywood, plastic and iron sheets. The rickshaws, carts and bicycles constitute the battle gear of this fighting band. They have their own poorly contrived, self-made signboards. Tired labourers, who are the small soldiers of a big battle, sit on rickety stools, chairs and benches and eat the cheap servings to continue fighting for another day.

Two pensioners talking about pension hike. Targets and goals rarely meet an end. It’s always about more money. Your own journey may be ending, but it crosses over to the next generation. You have to grab more of this world to hand over the baton to your progeny. Even though you come across hundred reasons when the ones for whom you are holding out the battle front, even in the old age, make you feel redundant and obsolete. You have but already ceded your life to them. ‘You’ means ‘they’. They may not understand it. However it doesn’t matter. You simply cannot hate them enough to stop worrying about them. Just like they cannot love you enough to help you take less painful steps on your rickety joints.

A rickshaw puller comes, mops his face with the corner of his head-cloth and gets busy in finishing his cheap lunch. He eats heartily. Hunger drives you like the best teacher. It guides you and misguides you at the same time. Poverty makes you devour your frugal pieces with a peculiar nonchalance. You chew more of your worries, hardly giving attention to what exactly you have on your plate.

The spring sun is getting scorching with each passing day. Its swiftly lays its hot fingers to absorb the leftover coolness the air still has. It devours it hungrily. Of course you wish less of the sun now at the beginning of summers, like you pray for more of it during winters.

The bigger world is just at an arms’ length but it’s miles long in distance if you measure the gap between the best dream of the people of this little stage and the normal day realities of anyone in the bigger world. There is impressive Wave City Centre Metro station, part of the world class metro rail system. Then you have an elegantly imposing tower, an ultra-modern shopping mall. Then you have a noteworthy underpass nearby. There are more impressive cars on the clogged road than any other vehicle.

Irrespective of what time of the day it is, you have a heavy throng of people. Young, middle aged, old, students, beggars, rich, poor, fat, thin, crippled, semi-crippled—a tightly squeezed bale of humanity. Their individual identities seem to be melting into a faceless commonness. The crowd colours everything with a swiping monotony. Poverty cuts your life’s meaning to keep it centred around a few bucks earned at whatever cost it requires. When you are pinned against the wall and just fight for a day, you automatically sharpen those instincts to prey upon any possibility or opportunity. The codes, principles and values constituting the great edifice of goodness get clobbered down, lose their value and go down the huge sewage drain whose foul odour fills the lungs with a marvellous continuity. After some time one finds it normal to inhale the obnoxious cocktail of motor exhaust, dust and sewage smell topped by the terribly sweating, smelly human bodies.

You have Audis and BMWs zooming past. On a garbage dump, almost in the middle of the stage, the cows and pigs that usually forage snout-to-muzzle and muzzle-to-snout are suddenly pushed out. There are intruders. A big herd of sheep, jutted against each other to make it one hungry jelly monster, is devouring the shitty leftovers. This is ultra-modern junk—cups, disposable plates, glasses, stale food, fruit peelings, plastic, plastic and more plastic. The Rajasthani sheep herder, roaming around hundreds of miles for the last blades of rapidly vanishing grass, stands pensively with his chin supported on the herding stick. He has his signature tight-fitting kurti, languorous dhoti and a huge shiny red headgear. He stands with the typical nomadic elegance from his part of India. He can have an eye feast. At a short distance, impressive towers having luxurious apartments shine under the bright sun. Many more are in the making. He is lost in their heights with a misty look in his eyes.

Inside the swanky super-mall, a stone’s throw away, it’s a completely different world. It’s not defined by hunger. It’s a replica of the dream after which the poor mass thronging the gates outside is running after. It smells of super elegance and style statement. You inhale a very condensed cocktail of luxury, perfume, spicy food, fine-soled footsteps, clothing, cosmetics, grocery and even Crossword bookstore. It has a heady aroma. A feeling of super-luxury seeps into your nerves. Utter want and hunger is just yards away outside. Many people feel hugely helped by just being a part of this luxurious dream for some time.

Grass is always greener on the other side. Thousands throng the muck to pick out morsels of survival. It’s a fight for more and more in the littlest of space. People leave the open countryside, getting bored with the smallness and feeling lost in the easy spaciousness, and run to get squeezed in the cage to feel a part of a bigger world.  

Learning a Worldly Grip

 

In two months time Sky, my nephew, will be two years old. What do we make of the world around us? It’s not the same world for everyone. To me the movie on the TV may have a certain meaning defined by relationships, love, jealousy, hate, anger and greed. To him the moving picture on the TV means the things he knows: water, car, ball and a few more things he has come to recognize. The entire drama being otherwise meaningless to him, his eyes light up the moment he sees any of these few items he is familiar with.

None of us can comprehend this existence in its entirety. There is always more to know, experience and feel. Just a part of the picture we see and draw out meanings on the basis of what we know, what we recognise and what we have experienced. The purpose of life then is to know and understand more of the picture. Know more, understand more, feel more. It’s no guarantee of happiness though. Some even say that the lesser you know, the happier you are. However, it cannot be helped. The quest stays. The pursuit remains.  

He has taken the first tentative steps to assert his claim to independence and free will. As usual, in an effort to explore the otherwise meaningless world to him, I find him wreaking havoc in the flower bed. And he does it expertly by doing the thing in totality by pulling out the entire branch.

‘Sky bad boy,’ I try to make him say, thinking it will somehow make him learn that flowers aren’t to be torn apart.

He looks at me, a finger pointing to his chest, ‘Sky good boy,’ making it plain that my ‘right’ is not essentially the same to him.

This happens to be the first instance of asserting his right to think of his own, instead of being guided by elders in each and everything from shitting to eating. A landmark indeed!

Another landmark follows. He gets congestion in chest so the doctor has prescribed nebulizer. Now he gets irritated like anything when these vapours engulf his face. He gets scared and howls. Now he learns to bargain.

‘Ma Ma bhaanp de do...and chu-chu de do!’ he says.

It means, ‘I will take steam without any fuss if you let me watch chu-chu TV.’ Needless to mention, he is fond of this animation program to the craziest limit.

There is a little set of picture books. Whenever he sees me reading a book, he grabs the set of picture books, dumps it on my lap and stomps his feet to be immediately taught.

Even when you reprimand him, he repeats your rant word by word as if practicing his tongue for the bigger verbal battles in future.

Then he ignores your presence completely because he is absorbed in watching cartoons on chu-chu TV. Things are now beginning to make a sense to him in the ways and manners of we grown-up humans.

He is scared of aeroplanes. When he is playing in the front yard, the moment an aeroplane’s droning sound reaches his ears, he runs inside saying, ‘Aeroplane, aeroplane!’ Sometimes it’s a false alarm, as he mistakes a vehicle’s sound as an aeroplane.

On a flight from Bhopal to Delhi, he continuously kept a few old passengers nearby on tenterhooks by repeatedly saying, ‘Papa this plane is going to fall!’

This afternoon an aeroplane’s silhouette flashed silvery bright against the blue azure of the sky. I held him in my arms, made him look at it with his little finger pointing towards the metallic bird.

‘Aeroplane good boy,’ I made him repeat many times as he stared at it on the border of curiosity and fear. Hope he finds the metallic bird a bit friendlier now.

He is scrawling every nook corner with whatever object he can accomplish the deed. The walls are his big canvas to draw his sketches and stamp his authority.

His first attempt at telling a lie to fetch the situation to his advantage:

Whenever he sees me reading a book, he runs to grab his picture books. So here he is trying to slip out of my hands. ‘ABC...ABC,’ he is saying. I’m not in a mood to teach him at this point of time. He makes full effort to slip out. He feels my unwillingness to let him go and grab his picture books.

‘Nani pas, nani pas,’ he is trying to convince me that he wants to go to his granny. So here I let him go, taking him on his word. He has duped me. He runs to fetch his glossy picture books and dumps these in my lap. Here are his efforts to get attuned to the larger clatter of life with more impressive notes of the bigger world.

The Curse of a Monitor Lizard

 

The IT engineer’s encounter with the monitor lizard in Singapore, it seemed, changed things quite dramatically. From a bright, flowery, fragrant spring, he seemed to have entered an arid zone of thorny bushes and dry, sighing sandstorms.

The Indian software engineer stayed in a basement room on the outskirts of the bustling cosmopolitan hub. He was sitting on the bed and watching Indian news with dreams of again joining his family back in his homeland. It was an exciting moment after five long, lonely years of earning money for the sake of family. With enough money in the account, the softer side of life beckons, the longing to stay with one’s dear and near ones, for example.

He had been trying for an internal shift to some branch in India. His immediate boss here in Singapore, another Indian, was a tough nut to crack. So the subordinate had to pull out all strength from his skills to be in his good books. He served him to the limits of chronic professionalism in office. Then there was another side, the personal one. He brought himself to the level of a domestic help to pamper the ego of his boss. They sat down for a drink or two now and then and during those times the junior would ensure that his senior felt nothing short of a king. It bore fruits. The process had been completed and he was to shift to their Mumbai branch. Home, sweet home!

Then it got derailed or rather a monitor lizard got on to the track and being a more than one meter behemoth it derailed the engineer’s wagon from the track. He was sitting with snacks and a light drink, watching Indian news and the dreams of homeland beautifully suffusing the room’s air. The nightmare started. There was a rustling sound under the simple plank folding bed. He bent down to find out what it was and two fluidy eyes stared at him and a tongue literally came close to lick his nose. A big monitor lizard it was. It was seeking a safe home like he was seeking a better part of the world.

Out of sheer panic he started jumping on the bed, letting out weirdest mutterings to sound like a cruel predator to scare away the big lizard. The reptile seemed to lose its wits and scampered out only to sneak into the farther recess of the room where his suitcases and travel bags were stacked in a corner. The things got toppled. Then it was running around the room. With shaking hands and trembling legs, he picked up the baseball bat and beat more of the ground in his avalanche of an attack. It was a critical melee. The reptile got a few side-slipping thwacks on its back. But its skin being thick, the fumbling strikes hardly left any mark on it. The attacker himself slipped and fell many times. By the time the intruder was driven out he was sweating profusely.

It was a strange ennui after the war. Suddenly he felt chronically bored with life. And to beat the boredom he took a heavy serving of whiskey, as much as he would consume in an entire fortnight. It had its lulling effect. He felt victorious. But the driven out and beaten monitor lizard seemed to have cast a dark spell on his little plans.

His boss arrived after some time. Some drinks followed. The boss felt relaxed. The subordinate felt he had wings to make him fly after having more than quadruple of what he usually took. Then his tongue also flew. With fumbling words he mentioned that he was a great resource and another company in Singapore was offering him a far better package but he wants to go home and join the home office.

‘So you have been applying for other jobs while I made myself a fool to cross all norms to get you a home shift!’ the boss gave a cold-murdering mutter.

A professionally incisive mail was forwarded by the seething boss to his own boss in London. The curse of the monitor lizard showed its effects. The shifting was stalled and a severe notice was served in his name.

Not having enough clue regarding how to wriggle out of the situation, he shared his woes with a content writer friend who worked in India. The writer, true to his species, gave a pretty literary touch to the scenario and built upon the simple facts provided by his engineer friend.

The explanation, mercy petition rather, was drafted by the content writer and the imperilled software engineer sent it in a mail to the English gentleman. The mail went like this:           

‘Sir, I’m sorry I have to write under these circumstances. It may not mean much professionally but I hope I am justified in giving myself this option to write to you. I have had such a nice experience in the organization for eight years. This time covers the best of moments in my personal and professional life. For an employee, the world stands between the company and the family. I am no exception. My job and my family are both equally important to me. Even if I have to go, I want to go with honours because the organization is really nice and I on my part have always tried my best to prove my worth as its employee.

Is it a sin to have a job offer in hand even when the employee is totally satisfied with the current company and doesn’t intend to shift? I take it simply as a proof of my professional skills. Why do we read ‘a job offer in hand’ just as a design to ditch the current company? Why can’t we take it as the proof of an employee’s worth? Moreover, is it a sin to share the very same casually with one’s manager? There is a huge difference between ‘letter’ and ‘spirit’. That I had a job offer was in ‘letter’ only. A simple fact. I just shared it matter of factly. In ‘spirit’ I had no intention to shift. Had I some design in my mind to shift, I know it better than to share it with my manager. All of us are smart enough for that. I planned for an internal shift to Mumbai with our dear company only. If there is any breach of protocol, it’s only this that I talked to my manager beyond the boundary and casually told him that I have an offer here in Singapore by some other company. If I was serious about shifting to a company in Singapore why would I request shift to the Mumbai office of our own organization? I would have easily resigned here in Singapore and joined the other company. The mere fact that I simply told him about this option in Singapore before leaving for Mumbai proves that I hardly harboured any thoughts to change company.

Sir, it’s not about this or that company. What pains me is that I have to go under such negative circumstances, all born of a terrible misunderstanding. On my part, I still maintain that I want to continue working with our company at Mumbai office. The majority of my eight years with the company have been outside my home country. I am thankful to the company for giving me this great opportunity to be a part of its world class set-up here in Singapore. I would be the last person to let go of such a nice office. But sir, all of us have our own circumstances that sometimes force us to somehow leave the best option and settle for something less. In my case, it’s my family for whom I had to take this hard decision to request an internal shift to Mumbai.

I have ageing parents at my hometown. My old father manages the affairs despite his health challenges. Now it is getting difficult for him to keep the things going. My wife has been very outstanding in raising our two daughters. There are challenges for her also, especially because she is from Philippines and adjusting to a different culture and raising daughters in a traditional Indian family is a totally different story. She and my ageing parents have done their best to manage things and take care of my daughters. All along these great years here in Singapore, one thing is plain that my family is scarifying a lot for me. I managed till it could be managed and requested for a shift only when the situation became unavoidable.

Sir, I know this is not a platform for expressing emotions and sentiments. But I think we devote ourselves to our professions only because we have the roots, we have our loved ones for whose sake we work abroad. Jobs are mere means to a happy self as part of one’s family unit. Jobs are utmost important and one has to prove one’s worth to the source of one’s salt, but still jobs are not the end in themselves. We know every dollar we make comes at the cost of lots of joyful moments that we could have spent with our near and dear ones. But then that’s life. Salary, perks, professional excellence and job satisfaction are very significant factors, but equally important are my old parents, my courageous wife and charming daughters. They have a vacuum in their life. The hole left by my absence. I just tried to fill that by requesting a Mumbai shift so that I could be with them. I want to fulfil the role of a father, husband and son apart from my duties as an employee of a world class organization. In pursuance of the same I planned this Mumbai shift. 

Can you imagine the joy my old parents must have felt after hearing the news of my arrival? Can you imagine the feelings of my wife that her life partner is now on the way to help her cope with the challenges put forward by a different culture? Can you imagine the joy of my little daughters that their Papa is going to be with them? It was a festive occasion for my family. They have been looking forward to it for many years. My father had a new spring in his steps as he planned a little feast for our near and dear ones. And then suddenly this unfortunate thing happens. I don’t know what to say. I am shattered. All I can say is that this world will be better without a broken employee or ex-employee.

I want to continue working with the company but I want to stand by my family also. I know they need me. But they need me as a gainfully employed worker of a nice company. Please ignore if you find it sentimental pleading. On my part, I have shared truth, in fact more than I should have shared perhaps. But truth comes with lots of emotions also. Facts are mechanical. I have spoken out my truth, and spoken with emotions because my truth is derived from my emotions only. I leave it in your hands. If you give me this opportunity it really helps me, my parents, wife and daughters. If you aren’t somehow in a position to help me, then no grudges sir. I will keep pursuing my path balancing my personal and professional life.   

Looking forward to positive outcomes after this negative interruption!’

And the positive outcomes followed. The gentleman from London sent back the following mail:

‘How marvellously you write! I love the way you express your emotions. I really like the way you share your feelings. Now it dawns upon me that most of the time we miss the real talent in people. You seem to be a writer basically trapped in the ill-fitting shoes of a software developer. That’s a sin on our part to keep you deprived of your real talent. With the feelings you write, I firmly believe that content writing would give you far more job satisfaction. Your restlessness will go away. You will have better job satisfaction. So we hereby offer you the position of content writer in the company. You will be helping us on our blogs, news posts and other website content. Hope it brings a smile to you!’

Well, it brought tears. Usually, well-seasoned and experienced content writers get just a fourth of the annual package that a below average software developer gets in the initial phase of his career.

He finished the remaining liqueur in his stock, picked up the baseball bat and went out to find out the monitor lizard in the public park nearby. To beat the curse, to be precise.   

The Big History of a Little Garbage Piece

 

There is an invisible world lost in the glitz and glamour of a city. One just sees through it. Eyes are instinctively prone to pass through it like a piece of see-through glass. It exists and doesn’t exist at the same time.

Garbage, cows, dogs, pigs and beggars man this world. These have been abandoned by the fast-paced cartwheels of the mainstream society. There are homeless beggars, filthier than a garbage dump, and lunatics lying cheaper than the worthless specks of dust around a shiny shoe.

My eyes stop at him. A small, frail man, his skin vying with his torn clothes in the degree of being dirty, sitting on his haunches against a wall. You would easily count him as one more lunatic, a poor mentally challenged invalid caught in a rapidly wasting body, biding time before the bugs of decay chuck out the remnants.

I take a few steps towards him. I have a smile on my face and try to walk as harmlessly as possible to avoid scaring him. He hasn’t possibly taken a bath since the last enforced rain bath during the rainy season. His blackened skin and unwashed black tattered clothes compete in claiming the mainstay of his non-existence.

I’m the least intimidating type; many people have assured me on this. In fact, I myself appear intimidated by the rampaging bullies running around to conquer the world all the time. But he may have his own reasons to get scared of all and sundry in the world.

He stands against the wall as I approach him. His instinctive gesture is folding hands as if asking forgiveness for being so dirty to the limits of appearing a pollutant even among the rubbish scattered around. He just cannot expect someone from the other world to approach him with harmless intentions. He is scared as if I’m coming to hit him. As I come near, he takes steps to escape from the scene, looking behind to ensure that I don’t hit him from behind.

‘Please, please don’t run. I just want to talk to you,’ I add extra sugar in the softest tone I can manage.

He stops at a safe distance. He is holding his hands in that posture of submission. His beard has grown wild like a pristine forest with some human intervention like they do in clearing woods in patches here and there. A few locks have been cut from the side leaving others hanging like the aerial roots of a banyan tree. It looks a terribly bad amateur effort at trimming beard.

‘I just want to know your name,’ I almost entreat.

‘Manish,’ he speaks with a clarity that I hardly expect him to possess.

‘Full name please,’ I probe a bit further.

‘Kalra, Manish Kalra,’ he says.

So it proves that he isn’t totally lost to the world. He knows his identity. His brain has the pathways leading to his awareness of his worldly self.

‘Where are you from,’ I am emboldened now and take recourse to my normal tone after a huge effort at sugar-coating each word.

‘Old DC road. Our house there. We three brothers. They pushed me out. Took my share,’ he divulges the story.

A lot many whom we assume to possess no history at all have in fact a big one.

The mentioned place is just nearby across the congested shopping quarters. He points to his legs.

‘Truck accident,’ he says.

I now realise the poor destitute’s fate is far more bitter than it appears on the surface.

‘I am not a beggar,’ he says. ‘Sometimes when my brother sees me in the crowd he gives me 50 rupees and I eat.’

‘Parents died, brothers not like me,’ he tells.

So he remembers his story. I offer him 20 rupees as if to pay him for this interview. He politely waves his hand to say a firm no.

‘It’s for food,’ I try to make him feel not like a beggar.

Again he says a firmer no. From what I can make out, he may be eating leftovers from the dumps outside the eating points instead of outright begging.

There are stories lost within the bigger stories.

I’m not left with anything to say. His little story is both a question and an answer in itself. With a defeated look I retrace my steps. As I move away and look back, I find him reclaiming his place.