The Hindu Business Line : The existence of the bottom rung

In her smart way, Rekha and every non-government citizen are aware of this modern, democratic fact of existing in India; the rest, like growth and equity, follows.

These days one can catch our housemaid Rekha smiling to herself as she goes about cleaning and scrubbing. Otherwise she is a dour woman and cannot be anything else having to get up at two in the night to collect water while her son and husband sleep.

In October, the Government has promised to allot a 220-300 sq.ft tenement in Borivili under a slum rehabilitation plan. She has seen the flat. She does not have the details except that of paying Rs 10,000 and an equal amount to agents to swing the deal.

“Do baje raat ko uthna nahin padega (Will not have to get up at two in the night); aur baris may panni andar nahin ayega (Water will not seep during the rains),” she says in Mumbai Hindi to Rama. “Pahla din tum logon ko aana padega (On the first day all of you will have to come to my home),” she adds and Rama nods.

The wife was in a nasty mood as Rekha had bunked work for two days. She concedes Rekha has a right to take offs, only she should alert her over the phone. “After all you were very particular exhausting all the casual, sick and privilege leave, when you were working. Like Rekha you never called up the office or Kurup, your chief of bureau,” remarked Rama rattling this writer when he favoured terminating Rekha’s services.

“You don’t interfere in women’s matters,” Rama added and one did not have the courage to reply that one had to do all the household chores in the absence of Rekha. Not all living on both sides of L.T. Road are entitled to government munificence. It is only for those who have lived in the slums till a cut-off date and Rekha has built up a file to earn a flat.

She is, of course, grateful to the bureaucrat who feels crowded living in a 2,000 sq.ft, built-up apartment at Nariman Point. Mostly they never leave the free, allotted flats for the years of service rendered to themselves, being public servants. Cut up over bureaucrats overstaying in government houses, the Supreme Court recently remarked: “In India, even God cannot help. He will be a silent spectator as He will also feel helpless.” One would like to add that in India a bureaucrat (including a sepoy) is God.

A government official needs 2,000 sq.ft (if not more) of living space in the best part of the city to enable him clear files not on a case-by-case but suitcase-by-suitcase basis. That’s one trick the bureaucrat has picked up from his political master. In her smart way, Rekha and every non-government citizen are aware of this modern, democratic fact of existing in India; the rest, like growth and equity, follows.

That way, Shyama, the flower and vegetable vendor from Saphale village, beyond Virar, is better placed. She takes the first train into the city and is at her appointed place on Link Road selling flowers and vegetables. It being the month of Shravan, a large number of Mumbaikars keep away from meat and drinks, though one has not understood the logic behind being an ascetic for a month. She has a 7-room tiled roof home.

Her husband is steeped in liquor and a month ago was laid up in a municipal hospital. He is also violent and Shyama cannot take it any more. Some regular customers helped Shyama with free funds as banks and insurance companies will shoo her away if she steps into their offices. Inclusive growth is for press conferences and edits. Her husband is out of the hospital and Shyama is a bit relaxed to get her two children into some education. There are yet others who on any scale form the bottom few feet of a globalised India.

With Link Road connecting south Mumbai to Dahisar in the north, a large number of vehicle repair garages have come up, albeit without licences (in this holy country, you need a licence, preferably a PAN card, to be born, a licence to live and a licence to die). That rule helps the police to needle them when in need of funds while without garages the rich cannot ply their vehicles on Link Road. Tea shops crop up near them employing kids, who would otherwise go hungry.

One recalls the chairman of a private bank telling me: “That’s economic development spurred by the growth of the auto industry. The boys will one day become garage owners as the economy touches regularly the 9 per cent Chidambaram GDP growth rate. That’s how US developed.” Malgudi has become New York and one did not dare fence with the bank chairman.

Noor Alam could be just under 10. He lives in the tea shop with his Mama, who brought him to Mumbai, under a blue plastic roof to keep away the rains. Through the day he serves tea to drivers and other customers and has now matured to selling bidis, cigarettes and pan parags. He comes from somewhere near the Bengal-Bihar border and can speak a mix of Bengali and Hindi. He has left his parents behind in the village. It is now a month one has known him and we have reached the comforting level of smiling at each other.

His one-change clothes, like his sandals are over-size as he watches school kids jumping into school buses in the mornings and getting out in the evenings. It may be hurting him to see the children with their parents while preferring to be a bindas (a care free human, in Mumbai Hindi) for the small world around him. Near the St. Bosco Church is a mobile garage trying to avoid the prying police.

The owner sits on the main road while on a side-road 10-year old Sonu repairs auto rickshaws. Sonu has left his parents in north Bihar and lives in a slum off the fabled IC Colony. One has noticed a woman offering him breakfast and lunch when the owner is absent as Sonu is scared of his burly owner.

One day, the lady offered him a packet of bhel puri and the owner objected. The lady fixed the owner, sitting on a stone, with a glare. One has never seen Sonu, the original, being ever swathed in grease and paint. He earns about Rs 50 a day and does not smoke or drink. “Ghar ko kuch behjna padtha hai (Some money has to be sent home),” Sonu explains.

P. Devarajan