Pages


Friday, August 22, 2008

The Slum

Mukundam Sir never walks around the slum—he struts around it, hands in his pockets, kicking the odd stone that lay in his path, swinging his black, double-compartmented bag that he slings around his shoulder, smiling at the skies and simultaneously, eyes darting everywhere, observing everyone, looking for children— children picking rags, children washing clothes, carrying boxes or pails twice their weight—and in between all this, he manages to carry out the most genial conversation with me about why Laxman is India’s best batsman. It is hot. So hot that sweat drips off my face like rain-drops off sloping leaves of trees during monsoons; so hot that I have almost finished the litre-bottle of ‘AquafinE’ water I bought at the slum-general store. I am famished, and another hour under this maddeningly scorching sun, I’ll call myself exhausted. I pour the last few sips of water on my head and stare into the hazy blob of yellow above and have this foolish urge to take off my Tee shirt. And through the corner of my eye, I notice Mukundam Sir swaggering around unmindfully, now whistling a tuneless tune, in a full-sleeve shirt ...

The slum is vast—a maze of intertwining gullies, some parallel and straight, some curved, some looped and some shapeless. It took me a whole week and a half to find my way around this place—the houses/huts/settlements have no numbers, they pretty much look the same in some places, it is as easy to get confused and lost as it is for an American in a game of cricket. Landmarks are difficult to find, and I relied heavily on intuition; with time however, I improved for every lane has an identity of its own, in this case most easily epitomised by its people. I used people as landmarks—I knew I was a couple of lanes behind the Government School by the sight of an old hag, devoid of teeth, always clad in saris in varying shades of green (a little bit of research told me that an Environmental NGO had come recently and distributed clothes for the old and the infirm), sitting by her house, staring at the bare, opposite wall like it had secrets only she could fathom; The sight of a group of merry, little children—whose combined ages I could almost count on my fingers— playing with the rags from the dump told me that a few steps to my right and I would be in the street of the Lambadis—a wandering, backward tribal group of people who rarely mixed with the rest; I knew that I was in the adjacent lane to the Muslim settlement by the sight of good, old Saidulu—a balding, gem of a man who lost both his thumbs and index fingers in an ‘accident’ (that was all he would tell me)—squatting and doing his wood-work with his seven-year old daughter covering up for his disability.

“What Saidulu?” Mukundam Sir says, “Still not willing to send the girl to school?”
Saidulu looks up—his deformed hands trying to keep the sun off his eyes—and says:
“See, how much help she can do around the house. And the little one inside? She’s barely a year old and needs someone around. Her mother goes away to work, every time she gets a chance”
Mukundam Sir shrugs and just when I think he’s not going to lecture, he does.
“You are only thinking of yourself, think about her for a change ...”
I’ve heard this speech so many times that I barely pay attention to what he says. And that allows me to appreciate everything else about his performance— his Adam’s apple bobs up and down frantically as his voice acquires a curious, different booming quality and this finds echoes in everything else he does as he gesticulates wildly, hands everywhere, now close-fisted, now open, now flowing; his face acquires a glow, it shines with something more than just pride—perhaps its only a trick of the light for the sun is blazing, and his deep-brown skin is sweaty and oily, perhaps not ...

When he’s done, leaving Saidulu staring at his scrap of wood meditatively, I ask him:
“Don’t you get bored of saying the same thing over and over again? Where does all the enthusiasm come from?”

“The enthusiasm comes from the fact that lunch is ... ” he pauses, to look at his watch, “... less than ten minutes away”
That’s typical Mukundam Sir. Sometimes, I wonder if this man is human: its one thing to have an inexhaustible fountain of enthusiasm tucked away inside you somewhere, its quite another to brush off all the noble work you do with incredible modesty (and a dash of flair).

********

I’ve got chapattis with aloo and thire saadam for lunch. I’ve also got some typical Andhra-curry that I can’t name, but still tastes swell. Mukundam Sir has got his normal quota of loads of rice, some delicious looking bendakai kura (my favourite) and lemon-pickle.
“Exhange offer!” he announces, miming perfectly the voice of the Big Bazaar lady, “Your Aloo for my bendakai; No extra fee; Hurry! Offer open till I count 5. 1 ...”
I quickly swap curries and smile at him. But, he’s looking away—at the blackened stream that lays by our slum, a faint trace of a frown on his face.
We are at the eastern edge of the slum— Mukundam Sir’s most preferred area. The government school building is here, towering over the rest of the slum with its inaccurately titled bright blue board on the third floor wall that reads ‘Government Girls Higher Primary School’ (there are far more boys than girls in the school); beside the school is a small temple—the deity is miss-able, being barely a foot tall and covered in garlands and turmeric, camouflaged by the bark of the tree by which it stands, but not the paintings of Durga looking lethal on a tiger (benign in comparison) or that of Kali, blood-stained trishul in hand, tongue sticking out; and these two—the school and the temple— form the centre of a single-storied housing complex, with one-roomed government-allotted quarters that house five, six or even more: lines of houses run on all four sides; and past the houses, the land slopes down, dirty green in colour, into the a stream, as dark as the skins of the coolies who toil all day; washerwomen wash clothes by its side, some men bathe their bulls, children swim and play ...
“What are you staring at?” asks Yadamma, the woman whose home we use as our dining-place.
“Huh?” he says, and almost mutters to himself, “those children by the stream ... why aren’t they at school?”
I catch Yadamma’s eye, and the two of us smile and nod our heads in understanding—some people can’t get some things out of their heads. And suddenly, Mukundam Sir asks me, unable to hide the dejection in his voice:
“Laxman got out twice today to the same bowler. Guess who?”
Or maybe they can.

It nearly six in the evening: the men and women return from their work, tired, worn-out, backs slouching, dragging their feet; some have gathered by the tea-shop, drinking chai, discussing slum politics, marriage, scandals, ration cards; others play cards and drink beer, on the open-aired first floor of the perennially under-construction, half-done apartment complex; the women rush home because their children wait for them hungrily, there are vessels to be washed, there’s water to be drawn; the children are noisy, some still in uniforms, some in workman’s clothes, playing marbles and ­chor-police; and in perfect contrast to all the frolic and madness and colour below is a polluted grim sky above and an expressionless yellow sun, making its way down ...

Mukundam Sir is smiling, as always, drinking the final chai for the day. The chais are free for us—the tea-shop owner is a fan. Not everyone is though, and Mukundam Sir, smiling calmly, is explaining to a woman why she must send her little girls to school. If I hadn’t been here for a month, I would have thought that she was near-hysterical: but that’s how it is here—the women and men are loud and almost violent in their gestures, never bothering to tone-down and be ‘civilised’: perhaps they’re being defiant, relishing the opportunity to be free, for in most ways, they are slaves of circumstances, of ignorance; perhaps, that’s how we all men once were, before civilisation and society clamped down upon us, setting norms and making politeness and softness go hand in hand. I don’t know, but I can’t help admiring and envying how ‘natural’ and unrestrained they seem...

And then there’s Mukundam Sir, as soft as ever, patiently listening to her lecture and smiling—it all came so naturally to him—I cant see how he can be a slave to societal norms in any way. The woman’s saying, from across the road, loud enough for everyone to notice, but not everyone does:
“Why can’t a rag-picker’s daughter be a rag-picker? Who are you to make that decision for her by sending her to school?”
Another smile, and somewhere inside, I can’t help but think that all this kindness and smiling is only fuelling her anger, as he says:
“Yes, she can be, if she wants to. But, why are you denying her the opportunity to make the choice herself? Who are you to decide that this is what she should do? Send her to school and once she’s done, if she wants to come back to work with you, then she very well may, but pray don’t deny her the choice by making it yourself ...”
And I think that’s struck a chord somewhere, and a part of her has already accepted defeat or is thinking along his lines of thought for she is raving like an absolute lunatic now, hardly coherent, stringing a slew of insults together, unable to say anything that makes sense.
When she’s done and gone, having called Mukundam Sir so many names that he’d give Lord Vishnu (of a thousand names) stiff competition, Mukundam Sir sighs, smiles and says:
“Ah, she’ll come around: I think I finally broke through this time, did you notice?”
I nod. Yes, I did. I also noticed how he stayed inexplicably calm throughout her tirade: any lesser man would have lost it. And to think that this man goes through something like this everyday.
“Let’s go now ... Long night ahead, and another day tomorrow ...”
The tone catches me off-guard: it’s the first time today that he’s shown any signs of weariness.
I turn around to face him and am caught off-guard again—his face is as fresh as ever—his eyes shine, his gait has the same buoyant feel to it; he’s back to being his normal super-human self.

********

The night is quiet; there is a wind that blows slowly, almost teasingly, beckoning me outside; the few stars that defy the pollution shimmer palely; there is no sky, no moon, just a dark-grey above.
I give in—it is just too tempting. I reach for my helmet, feel my pockets to see if my vehicle keys are there—they are—and in a matter of seconds, I am out, racing through the streets of the city, the wind slapping against my chest, goose-pimples on my arms.
There are few vehicles on the road; the shops are shut; the odd cow rummages the garbage dump by the road; dogs howl in the distance; and street-dwellers are fast asleep with night-watchmen giving them company. And before I realise it, I am on the road leading to my slum—it’s a road I frequent so often that mechanically my subconscious mind guides me in the direction. The road narrows, and just as I am about to curve into the slum, I nearly hit a man with a cricket bat in his hand, walking in the middle of the road. I honk loudly and my brake screeches. Just as I am about to let my tongue loose on him, I stop myself—its Mukundam Sir.
“Sir?”
“Huh?” he says, looking straight ahead and continuing to walk.
“Sir?” I shout loudly, driving slowly to keep pace with him.
He doesn’t respond, but simply twirls the cricket bat in his hand and moves on. I don’t know why, but I am suddenly afraid.
I hastily get off my vehicle and let it rest against the wall that borders the road, throw my helmet aside and run ahead to catch up with him.
In the orange light of the street-light above, I notice his face: it is blank. I grab him by the shoulders and give him a few jerks: he stops and stares dazedly into my eyes, and gradually there’s a flicker of recognition, and then the sides of his eyes well up, and he drops the bat and slumps onto the ground, onto his bums, leaning against the wall behind. And he whispers, but in the silence around, it is all too audible:
“Why don’t they understand?”
“I do”, I say, “I do. And they’ll do too. Someday”
Silence. He’s looking past me now.
“I guess they will” he says gradually, and I notice the smoothness returning to his voice, as I give him a hand and he rises.
There’s an uneasy silence as he brushes away the dust from his backside—I don’t know what to say.
“Oh, and by the way, since I am no longer the great, noble man you think me to be, Bendakai koora is my favourite too, please spare me some the next time I bring it”
He always does.