The march of life

It was a dull Thursday afternoon. The sun had hid behind the clouds and the gloom just seemed to be sucking the life out of me. I was sitting on a chair inside my small cubicle staring at the computer screen. The mood around me was serious. The environment controlled with air conditioning and artificial lights. The silence was deafening. It was a different world around me. People acted strange and being pretentious was the real deal. I was over-loaded with work, but I just couldn’t concentrate. I was distracted – with a thought. ‘Why was she crying?’ I began to wonder as the guilt slowly started consuming me. ‘Why didn’t I console her?’, ‘Could I have helped her?’ question after question began to haunt me. The more I thought about it, the more the guilt consumed me.

The previous evening I left the office at 4:30 as always to avoid the rush hour traffic. I lived in a ghetto just ten kilometers away from my office, but the rush hour traffic would extend my travel time to nearly an hour. I always took the bus home since I am a strong believer of the green movement. That evening as I stood at the bus stop waiting for the bus, I saw Naima, my neighbor from the ghetto sitting there crying. I simply ignored her. I wasn’t the emotional kind, and moreover I hadn’t spoken to her much my entire life. Plus what business did I have interfering in her life.

Ours was an asylum turned ghetto. We were all children of migrant Christian converts who once belonged to the lowest section of society – the scheduled caste. Our ancestors were carriers of night soil from the aristocrat houses. My father told me that there was an Italian priest Fr. Giovanni who was moved by our plight. He built this ghetto, converted us to Christianity and offered us better jobs. But once Fr. Giovanni left India, things went from good to worse. Suddenly the church and its priests started discriminating between us and their rich patrons. But we were the voiceless poor. The church did provide us with a house. If we spoke, we would be evicted. The fear of losing a roof over our heads kept our tempers down and mouths shut.

Naima lived five houses after mine towards the open sewer that separated us and the aristocratic housing layout. She was a widow, the sole earning member for the family of six. She worked at the pantry of a small toy factory, whose office was situated two buildings away from mine. Her situation was far from pathetic. She had drowned in debt, which her drunkard husband had accumulated. One of her sons was polio ridden and paralyzed below the waist and her mother bedridden. Life seemed to have taken an ugly revenge upon her. She couldn’t afford to take a day off. She couldn’t afford to fall sick. She was like a machine that worked eighteen hours a day.

I was the only person in the ghetto to possess a degree certificate. My father worked as a sacristan at the local seminary. His loyalty towards to priests earned us their good fortunes. I was always good at studies. But we didn’t have the means to afford college education. But the priests wanted me to study. Hence they struck a deal with my father – I would get a degree at one of their institutions in return for my father working free for the rest of his life. The priests did guarantee us food in return to my mother working as a cook in their kitchen. It was no bargains barter. My parents wanted me to study. My opinions and concerns were immaterial.

I was never really close to Naima or her family. My mother occasionally used to send them some food / sweets, but we never really spoke. But then outside the ghetto, all of its residents were like one big family. We were trained and conditioned the hard way to look out for each other. I was still confused – a part of me was forcing me to go and enquire about her problems, the other part was preventing me from doing that. Finally I decided to go and talk to her.

That very moment I switched off my computer and without informing anyone else headed to her factory. Now as I recall and introspect upon this, I find no convincing reason that justifies the fact that I took such a quick decision to head there, but it all seemed right then. Upon reaching her factory, I realized that outsiders are not allowed into the production zone. I had the option of requesting the guards to call her for a chat, but the fear of being humiliated by her turning down my request was high. I had doubts as to whether she even knew my name!

So I decided to wait for her at the bus stand. I waited till half past six that evening but there was no sign of her. Dejected, I headed back home. As I was entering the ghetto, I saw her youngest daughter playing in the small garden around the corner. I asked the little child as to where I could find her mother and she directed me to her home. I left the girl to play and headed to their house.

Upon entering the house, I saw a dejected Naima seated at one corner sobbing, her hair messed up, and clothes torn. She was not embarrassed but was angry. I could notice the rage on her face. There was no else present there with her. I had no idea as to how one reacts to situations like these. So I simply, walked unto her and tried comforting her. She shrugged, pushed me away and walked outside into the yard. I quietly followed her and stood beside her, watching the boys play cricket on the road in front of us. I refrained from uttering a word, but simply stood and waited for her to say something.

After a long pause, she suddenly burst in tears, ran inside and shouted ‘I lost my job!’ I was shocked. I slowly walked inside. There were mixed emotions. I was confused. A charade of questions began circling my mind. This job was worth much more to her than her life. With the job gone, one could only imagine the grief and anguish she was going through. But curiosity soon took over and I enquired as to why she lost her job.

The next half an hour I silently listened to her. She told me her troubles and sorrows, how life had cheated on her and how no matter how hard she tried fate was always brutal. She went on to explain about her trouble she underwent to arrange for a decent meal to feed her family and how without this job, they were staring at a slow and painful death. She was a fighter. Any other person standing in her shoes would have killed her entire family before taking her own life. I patiently listened to her story. It was heart breaking.

Her youngest daughter wanted a toy doll just like other girls in the ghetto. Naima had already disappointed her daughter many a times by not living up to her promises about new clothes or at times even a decent evening snack. She didn’t want to deject her daughter again and that too on her birthday. Frustration and helplessness lead her to take the drastic step of stealing a miniature doll from the production line of the factory. But, she was not thinking straight. She had not planned it before. It was a moment of extreme insecurity. She was caught red handed in the act. The manager of the factory didn’t accept any excuses but simply fired her.

As soon as she was done narrating her story, she fell onto my feet, held them tightly and begged me to help her. I stood there like a rock. My body frozen in fear. Anger gushing through my blood. I wanted to strangle the manager of the factory to death. To me what Naima had done was wrong, but what the manager subsequently was unforgiveable.

Determined to help, I rushed to meet my friend Wilfy, who lived at the far end of the ghetto. We both sat and discussed the issue the whole evening and decided to do something about it. Wilfy was a close comrade of mine. He never said no to me, no matter how difficult and dangerous the task was. And unlike me, he was loved and adored by everyone in the ghetto for his calm and graceful demeanor.

The next morning, Wilfy and a ten of us marched with a banner, placards and red flags from the ghetto to the factory demanding reinstatement of Naima. By the time we reached the factory we were twenty member stronger. We sat there in front of the gate shouting slogans like ‘Inquilab zindabad’ ‘ghareebon ke sath, bhagwan ka hath’ pressurizing the management to agree for talks. By afternoon a few more factory workers joined us.

The management cleverly called the police who put a barricade in front of the factory gate. Realizing that the management will not relent to our demands, we announced an indefinite hunger strike. Two days into the strike, the mood in the camp was low and frustration high. There was a palpable tension building up between us and the police. The police soon sent us signals asking us to vacate by evening or face arrest. We were determined to stay put. But with time running out, and with hunger distracting the minds, there was pressure upon me and Wilfy to act.

At around 3:00 in the afternoon that day, I noticed a white Chevrolet Cruz coming out of the factory. Inside the car sat the factory owner. Realizing this was my moment, I quickly ran towards it, stopped them and said to the bearded man sitting inside ‘Can’t you see these people are dying?’ The man pushed me away and exclaimed ‘None of my bloody problem!’ In the fit of rage I caught him, slapped him, spat on his face and shouted ‘bastard!’

Realizing that this was their best opportunity, the police immediately lathi charged us and arrested me.

Having said this, I stood there in the ‘accused box’ and looked at the judge seated on an elevated platform at the opposite end of the court hall. Silence ensued. All eyes were on the judge and there was a strong sense of anticipation inside the court hall.

Soon enough, the judge looked at me, smiled and asked me ‘Is there anyone who can corroborate your story?’ Before I could react, the whole audience stood up in a show of solidarity. A baffled judged pronounced me not guilty and instructed the factory to reinstate Naima.

The whole ghetto that flooded the small court hall roared in jubilation. It was not a victory for me or Naima, but it was a victory for the ghetto. The poor had won the battle. The rich had lost. History was made!