That was just the outline of a popular Tamil movie and the girl in front of me in the small, terribly quiet room lit with a solitary but powerful white bulb, was not Trisha, the beautiful actress. But she looked very pretty all the same.
People call me a very quiet boy, but today I decided to break my shackles today and talk. Just the opportunity of talking to someone as pretty as she was - perfect eye lashes contouring her eyes beautifully and a smile that would make Colgate models look for alternate jobs - were good enough reasons for me to try to send my silence away on a one-hour holiday.
It all happened so quickly. Sanket bhaiya had called me to the Borivali railway station at 9 am and said that a friend of his wanted to talk with me. Sanket is one of the people that come to the temple nowadays to teach me and my friends. He obviously took pity on me and my mother who plead people walking past us to part with some of their money so that we could buy food or clothing or treat open and potentially septic wounds. (In other words, we beg.)
Shreya was with Sanket when I met him at platform number one. He told me that she was a nice person that wanted to talk to me for some time in her 'studio.' He said she was a ‘Child Sy-ko-logist’. I did not know what it meant but I could not care less. She looked so pretty that I would go to school every day with her if she taught there.
The local train took us to her single room studio and that is where I am now. Sanket left the place, he was a theatre artist and had to practice for a play.
The room was small, you could reach from one corner to the diagonal corner in four leaps. But it was spotlessly clean (So there are places in India that don’t have paan stains on the walls). And silent. I could not hear a single honk or the clattering road of a giant JCB machine, the sounds I am used to.
'This will not take more than an hour, Muthu,' Shreya said in heavily accented Tamil. I knew instantly that she had spent more time in Mumbai than down south and stifled a grin.
I nodded, thinking I would not mind a longer chat…
‘Sanket tells me that you don't like it much in school and are always coming back home before the classes gets over.'
….or maybe not… So this was going to be a lecture on going to school regularly?
Didn’t have a choice of answer there.
‘This is not going be a lecture on why you should be in school.’ Well, she just read my mind, my face more like it. ‘I just want to know what is stopping you from being there. But not for more than an hour.’ She looked at her watch as if mentally starting a countdown timer.
I didn’t like the way this was going, despite Ms. Super-smile here. Who wants to be told again that education is important and all the associated spiel. I reluctantly gave in. The temple was my domain, I could just run, hide behind the numerous flower shops or get into the many autos parked outside in random fashion and no one could find or catch me. But this tiny space was hers and I had to respect that.
‘Let us talk a little bit more about you first. Leave the school topic for later. I am sure you have interesting stories to tell, coming here all the way from Tamil Nadu.'
I started tentatively but before I knew it, was spilling out details of my life I had not told anyone before. Maybe it was the silence in that room that made me narrate the stories of my life. I told her how my family was caught in a debt trap back in my village and how we needed the money to get him out of our backs.
'And so, my parents decided to come here and get a job. They are convinced that there is big money to be made here.'
'That is true, Muthu. Mumbai is a place that encourages talent and innovation. There is no limit to the things you can achieve here. What do your parents do here?'
I tried hard to focus on the session, but could not resist the biscuits kept on the table. The chocolate cream was tempting. Shreya understood the want in my eye and gave the packet to me. 'Go on, take it. Don’t feel shy, it’s for you.'
'They are construction workers,’ I said splitting the two biscuits and licking the cream off one. ‘I too help them from time to time,' I said proudly. ‘We worked on many big buildings back home – the clock tower, the railway over-bridge and many more. We are working on the flyover coming up near the temple in Borivali.' I said, trying to sound important.
Not many people listened to me when I spoke and so I was excited at the attention I was getting. I then told her about my Near Death Experience.
'When I was small, mom carried me in a piece cloth tied around her back and went to work. She walked up and down long flights of stairs with me on her back and a big iron plate full of bricks on her head.'
'Some strength she had' Shreya exclaimed.
‘One day the hot sun must have hit her harder than usual; she lost balance on the seventh floor and teetered on the edge. I wondered why I suddenly was tilting. The motion stopped abruptly and I rapidly moved to the other side and I heard a man’s voice shouting out. I was too young to understand what had happened until much later my dad, in drunken rage, screamed at my mom, "I wish you had indeed fallen that day from the seventh floor along with this good for nothing fellow. I would not be in half the debt that I am in right now."
'If your mom was carrying you on her back, you would have been a baby. How on earth do you remember something that happened when you were so small? I can’t even remember …. say, the colour of my first bicycle.’ I didn’t know colours of bicycles are things that people are supposed to remember after growing up.
'It is simple. I have a very strong memory. Did Sanket bhaiya not tell you my prowess in the Memory game?'
'Memory game? What is that?' she leaned forward onto the table, as if I had told her I knew the location of long lost buried treasure.
‘Sanket bhaiya blackmails us that unless we study, we can’t play this game. We all absolutely love this board game he brought for us. It has small squares containing pictures on one side – like cars, cartoons, men and so on - placed upside down. These squares were in pairs and we had to take turns in uncovering two squares at a time, and matching the pairs. I have never done a wrong match till now if I could help it.' My chest puffed out in pride. Now that I said it out aloud, it felt good indeed. After all, we would have played the game hundreds of times.
'That is something,’ she exclaimed, returning to her original position.
'And then there was this other instance that was quite funny. A painter that the construction company had employed asked him to write something on a board and hang it outside the building. I had a peek into the piece of paper and since it was all in English, I could not make out much but the letters got locked in my memory. Days later, this painter decided to get the job done, and called me along to help him out.'
At this point I needed a piece of paper and started looking around. Shreya fished into her handbag and gave me one along with a pen.
'The man painted T.O.I.L.E.T,’ I wrote this word on the paper, ‘on the board and hung it outside the building. I swore to him that the straight line between the O and the L should not be there. Even though he had lost the paper, he was equally adamant what he wrote was right. He said that he had painted many such boards for his previous employer, some company named Sulabh and that they had never complained once.'
I paused, waiting for the effect to sink in, and soon enough Shreya burst into laughter and I started giggling as well. Sulabh is a firm that constructs toilets around the country.
'So, how is life in Mumbai for you? Apart from the obvious problem of language, how are you managing?'
I could not bring myself to answer this question immediately. I had realised some weeks after landing here that it was going to be very difficult to get out of this place and that this is where my future was going to be made. Did I want to be hauling stones up and down stairs for the rest of my life? No. But there were many challenges and some seemed so insurmountable that it was pretty discouraging.
She got up to stretch and get some water from the cooler in the corner. ‘I came here when I was young too, and found it difficult. But slowly I started liking it!’
I smiled wryly. Her life was a lot rosier than mine is right now.
Sensing my discomfort she gave me a cue, ‘Do you want to tell me what you do daily?’
I was glad she did and picked it up. ‘I told you. When she is not in the construction site, my mother and I beg for a living outside the mandir. Not just us, many folks from all around the country. Gudlu is from Rajasthan, Suresh from Kashmir, Rayudu from Andhra, people from all over the country are there. You should come there once, it is fun.
I was not even in school till recently when Sanket bhaiya got all of us admitted in one nearby. Luckily all of us know a little bit of Hindi, so we manage there.’
‘But how did you get into the school in the middle of a year?’
‘Even I thought I will avoid it till the beginning of June, but seems like there is some scheme by the government called SSA. I don’t know what that is, but according to that, every child should be in school and so the teachers said they would admit me under that scheme.’
My mind drifted to the time I joined school. The teachers had asked me for my birth certificate which my mom was positive we did not have. My dad left for the village a week before that, and he was retained by the landlord who threatened to possess our land forcibly if he returned to Mumbai anytime soon. So he stayed behind. Sanket bhaiya went to a court nearby, spoke to some people, and got birth certificates done for me and my friends. Then I received books, pencils, even a small school bag that they said would help keep my books safely in case it rained and our huts got flooded. That was indeed a bonus and all these at no cost at all.
‘So do you like school? I know you had studied till your fourth standard in your village, but then dropped out.’
‘I attend half day and then return to the temple.’ I ignored her question, because I myself did not know the answer.
‘Why?’ she said this was precisely the moment she was waiting for.
‘Food, madam, Food.’
‘What does that mean? I am sure they serve you food at the school.’
‘And so am I sure that you won’t like to eat cold boiled egg and rice two days old every day of the week.’ I loved being sarcastic.
‘No, not really.’ She sputtered, with no other choice but to agree to me.
‘So all of us come home and stand in the line. There is a ‘Free food for beggars’ scheme instituted by the temple.
You should see the rush there. There is not even that much crowd to see the God at times, we stand in the line,
some bullies try to stand ahead of us bypassing the queue, we hit them with stones, they retaliate, it is all fun! If only all things in life were as adventurous as receiving lunch,’ I sighed as I remembered fondly of lunch time.
‘Oops, am sure it is fun,’ she said blandly. I wondered why she did not share the same excitement. ‘So you return to school after lunch?’
‘No didi. How can I miss the evening snacks? Only a fool would.’
‘So they have a ‘Free snacks for beggars’ scheme too?’
I giggled, she did have some sense of humor.
‘I wish they did. This time it is the devotees. They come in these big cars, pray to God, and serve us with tasty laddoos, jalebis, and what not. Some ladies come in these bright sarees, get out of huge cars remove their chappals on the road, and pray from the road itself. Then their servants would hold a tray full of sweetmeats and walk behind them while they distribute the sweets to us. They get part of their ticket to heaven made and we get our taste buds tingled. Can there be a better deal?’
‘But who said their tickets to heaven are made when they feed children like that?’’ She could not be serious with that question.
‘Come on didi. Is it not obvious? Feeding someone is doing good. And that will surely take one to heaven.’
Her eyes were telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. ‘Ok, I beg to differ, but continue.’
‘What is more to tell? That is it. The day ends, and then night falls. Whatever we have left of rice and dal, we prepare in our huts, eat, and sleep.’
‘But don’t you have tuitions nowadays?’
‘Oh yes. How can I forget. Sanket bhaiya and his friends come to the mandir every other day and teach us some things. English, Computers, Counting and stuff like that. They even make three-year old Mangu do some work by giving him some drawing sheets. The poor guy is all lost and scribbles something on the paper’
I then told Shreya about all the things that happen when Sanket comes over. He had initially met me playing marbles on the road and convinced me into sitting with him for a while. Slowly he gathered the other kids too. But we were not interested in studying. What would we do with English anyway? We already knew things in English. “Hello”… “How are you”.. “What ijj your name” … Are there much more things in English to know about that would matter?
Then started the memory game sessions. Initially we wondered how interesting a game where one would not need to run, hit, scratch, fling things at each other be. But once we saw that it was pretty challenging, we all got hooked onto it. Like I said, no one could beat me in the game. Anshul, the resident bully loses so badly at the game and simply refuses to understand that he is all brawn and no brain. The only way I can get back at him for making fun of my cleft is by defeating him time and again at this game.
‘You know what? This cleft of mine is in a way good’
‘Really? How?’
‘Just like wearing dark glasses masks where your eyes are looking at, having this cleft, it is hard to figure out if I am making faces at anyone.’
She laughed out. ‘You really think so?’
‘Tell me if I am making a face at you now or not.’ I threw a face contortion at her.
She mulled over it a bit. ‘I think you are.’
Damn, she found out. It didn’t work as well as I thought it did.
‘No, see, I told you. This is what I keep doing to Anshul when he takes a dig at me. Poor fellow does not even realize. Even if you keep the right pair of tiles facing up on the board, he would not identify them. Even if you told him! He is that dumb.’
‘I am sure he won’t. Sounds like all brawn and no brain, like you say. And how about your mother? Is she ok with you going to school?’
‘No,’ I replied. That was an easy question. How can she be? Me being around meant being fed properly. We needed as much food as we could get and from any quarters. Sanket bhaiya had asked mom the same question many times and she has never managed to say No, by herself. Probably out of guilt, but she put the blame on me saying ‘Ask him if he wants to study. If he does not, then what’s the point?’ she used to say. And I would always respond to Sanket bhaiya with a blank stare. So he could not really enforce her to ensure that I stay in school.
‘That’s wrong. If he is trying to help you, then you should co-operate. You do not want to be a resident beggar outside the mandir, do you?’
I sensed a small degree of anger in her voice.
‘Do you know your alphabets well?’ Boy, she was on a roll, but this time she asked the wrong question.
‘I can write and read the alphabets, and I am the first to answer questions in my class,’ I answered in an equal tone.
‘Want to see? I can even read what is written on…say this piece of paper here.’ I turned the newspaper that was facing her towards me, praying that simple words were printed. In the next couple of minutes, I was sure I made her forget what English she knew. Still she smiled.
But that is not what surprised me. Was I really able to recognize and put together so many words and sentences? Was I finally learning something?
‘Did that make sense?’ I asked her hesitatingly.
She ruffled my hair. ‘Make sense? It was impressive’ That smile again. Take cover, Colgate models.
I have had some pretty (and) rich people talk to me at the temple telling me to ‘be a good boy’ and to ‘study instead of being here.’ But an uncle told me something that impacted me a lot. When he knew that I had helped my parents in constructing buildings before, he told me that everything in life was like constructing something.
Just like you placed one solitary brick after another, poured cement, painted, and then completed the structure, one had to be patient, place one small step after another, and pave the road to success. And of course you step back from time to time and feel good what you have achieved so far – be it completion of the foundation, or the first floor and so on. I wondered if by grasping at least some elements of what Sanket bhaiya taught me, if I have placed a few bricks in constructing for myself a good education.
‘I think it’s time for us to leave,’ Shreya interrupted my thoughts. ‘We can continue with another session later on, but I think you are a very smart kid,’ she said and for the first time in my life, someone had praised me. And I knew there was some truth to it.
We journeyed back to Borivali where Sanket was waiting for us at the platform. I felt sad seeing her go. She had been nice to me, and I hoped that she would come to teach at the mandir too.
Sanket bhaiya,’ I said on the way back to the temple for our evening session. I could not resist, I just knew it was the right thing to do. ‘Can you talk to my mother today?’
He seemed only mildly surprised like he was already half expecting this.
‘About what?’ I was sure he knew the answer.
‘About keeping me in school? I want to study properly and finish college one day.’
The world seemed a nicer place, I felt strong, confident, and raring to go, ready to place the other bricks, and finish my own construction. I would tell the other boys too this.
There were multiple reasons for me to write this piece. I was deeply impacted by the lives of migrant children in Mumbai, with whom I have worked with for some time. The names of the characters in this story, are fictitious though they actually are the names of some of my friends that have done work like this in Dream India and out of as well.
Some of the main points I hope this piece highlighted were...
- · The plight of migrant child laborers
- · About insensitive people encouraging begging by giving alms misconstrued as good deeds that will buy them Rajdhani express tickets to heaven
- · About the role of youth volunteers in helping millions of such children across the country, thereby contributing to nation building
- · Government schemes like SSA
Attached picture is of the actual kids I have worked with in Kandivali, in the construction site of the flyover, opposite a mandir.
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