It was rather fortuitous that I happened to turn onto this road, the aroma of fresh warm food had been assailing my olfactory senses and with my tummy growling, my legs followed rather tiredly. I had set out to meet some of my friends, just arrived from the humid southern metro known as Chennai and on the local suburban had my pocket rearranged with an empty vacuity that defines rootlessness thrust suddenly along with loss of identity that is becoming increasingly crucial to prove, to my own fellow citizens that I am as much a citizen, having born half a century earlier, of this country as them. The single One Rupee coin was utilized to feed the hungry maw of an inoperative PCO.
Now as I turned and scanned the sign boards I found myself in Mahim. I had been here before, the streets redolent of rotting fish, and wet garbage trying to sweat its odour out under the pale monsoon sun. Hearing a commotion, I looked up from my reverie and saw about half a dozen people scrambling into an eatery, clutching a single note and in the distance, a black Sonata purring away.It was then I noticed the crowd of men, sitting on their haunches with the look of hunger etched sharply on the hope in their eyes as they espied my branded wear. Ray-Ban, Wrangler, Levis and Reebok and a packet of Dunhills with a silver lighter. By this time I had passed a few eateries wading through haunched hunger and found myself in front of a restaurent calling itself, Noor, and peeped into a bunch of men eating silently the dal-rice paste filling a primordal need. I entered and was shooed away with the words, "Sponsor kaun hai?"It confirmed my nagging suspicion that this was the road where despite the frenetic pace with which stocks were sold and celluloid dreams laid waste a billion fantasies of Raakhi Sawant in grunted ejaculate, Bombay balmed its troubled conscience by drive-by charity.Paisa-less, i too shedding my self-imagined dignity, squatted alongside a man who looked alright with flashy ring embeds on both his ears. Examining the gaunt, reeking of hunger faces around I try to get some history but am met with blank stares. It appears that, fellow-hunger-stricken we may be but on this demeaning-to-one's-ego pavement socializing is frowned upon for the simple reason that with a full belly, one would be better off taking ones chances looking for work elsewhere. But I did get a sympathetic mouth that was willing to jabber to a fellow novice, whatever may be the outward prosperity that I am dressed in.
This neighborhood, has had the "bhookh" restaurents for decades. The city's broken, drifting men squat in neat rows in front of each restaurent, waiting patiently for the drive-by, when a window rolls down, clutching a few rupee notes that are grabbed and liquidated on the degchas full of food simmering behind them. Until the appearance of a donor/sponsor what separates these men from the food is a chasm more easier to assume than actually understand. As fervently hoped for every so often, a car pulls up, donates, and the men eat.The restaurant owners describe their mission as charity, sitting on cash counters that are profit-making,if not much. For only in our country would a bunch of people exploit, for their own livelihood, the weary bunch of people beset with withered dreams that starve on the dashed hopes of making it big in this city of lights.In these eateries, poverty is distilled to its essence. The true burden then, more than the lack of a filled pocket, is the vulnerability to other people,a dependence on their whims. If, during the commuter rush a woman passes and your eye catches hers communicating your hunger, you will eat. If she is talking to her boy friend or surfing the browser for breaking news, you may not. Squatting on the pavement life becomes as simple as that- someone's whim!! And on the pavements of Mahim catering to these down-on-luck hungry bellies, remnants of the feudal tendencies echo in hunger-burps.
Not for us the example of soup-kitchens abroad, we would rather ape the Armani suits and Chanel perfumes. For aping the soup-kitchens would entail breaking our Indian style of feudal charity, that of giving to those who are below us in the household chain of command an example of which is paying for the driver's children for their stay in school or for a surgery to remove the appendix of your maid, depending upon their performance until then. Perfect feudal mind isnt it, exhibiting so to say, a filial obligation? So to have a soup-kitchen would go against the grain of this mentality. The Mahim squatters before the eatery should then, become the very billboard for their cause - sunken sad-eyed, mournfully obedient and reverential in their demeanour which us, who claim to be of higher lineage, expect from them.And which made the 60 year old man sitting in an old Ambassador, pull out his wallet and give to me with a sneer, a crumpled 100 rupee note. There's spring in my step as I enter the hallowed portal of hunger, named Noor along with half a dozen and wait for a sickly waiter to serve us on bright orange, green and yellow plates a double-handful of rice and dal. I grab the green mirchi from the dal with my left hand and begin to spice every alternate mouthful exhibiting my dependence and disgrace, all man-made thoughts as my grumbling stomach tells me and wait impatiently for the hunger to be satiated and meander my 20 kms back to where I stay. Perhaps by midnight, I should reach my "sane" world and begin to write about this facet of Bombay, that lies unexposed, like a used condom in the garbage.
There are no regulars to the Noor restaurent, only the "mentally retired".
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Drive-by Charity
Saturday, 21 June 2008
It was rather fortuitous that I happened to turn onto this road, the aroma of fresh warm food had been assailing my olfactory senses and with my...
Saturday, 21 June 2008
It was rather fortuitous that I happened to turn onto this road, the aroma of fresh warm food had been assailing my olfactory senses and with my...
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Comments (2)
ragamuffin
said:
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Very simple stated and yet very touching.Honestly there's very little that we do for the unfortunates and that too is totally dependant on our whims and fancies. |
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derebail2009
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Mumbai has to find its bearings, collect all the used condoms and check out how many are fortunate to really enjoy their inter course in this cramped city. I loved the duration of the struggle, triumph and migration from mumbai. |
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