Some doors, it turns out, you can knock on for years and they still won't tell you what's really behind them.
I was young once. Not a child, but not quite grown either.
I used to wonder about odd things.
Why fireworks cost more than someone's next meal.
Why a wedding invite went to five hundred people who barely knew the family, while someone two lanes away hadn't eaten.
I never got answers.
I just got older.
Later, I reported on these things for a living.
Turns out, seeing it up close doesn't make it simpler.
It just makes it heavier.
In my old neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, there was a sweeper family.
The father did the stairs.
The mother did the garbage.
The son and daughter, still teenagers, mostly sat around till noon, waiting for the day to end.
By evening he would accompany his parents.
To collect the left-over food.
The vaalu, as they were called.
For the uninitiated, in the earlier years, communities designated for menial labor relied on these leftovers for basic survival due to systemic poverty.
I asked him once if he went to school.
He said school ended for him in the third standard.
Seven years ago, maybe eight.
The Offer That Failed
So I made him an offer.
I would pay his fees, buy his books, get him his uniform.
All he had to do was wash my car each morning, so it wouldn't feel like charity.
He said no.
I offered him two hundred rupees a month on top of that.
He still said no.
He told me, quite plainly, that he'd rather do what his father did.
I argued for an hour-and-a-half.
I used every version of common sense I owned.
He was polite about it, and completely unmoved.
I went home feeling like I'd lost an argument I didn't know I was having.
Two years passed.
His sister was getting married.
Yes, too early to marry but still.
A letter came from the society chairman, asking everyone to chip in.
Most gave the customary eleven rupees.
I gave a hundred and one, and promised some unused clothes once I dug them out of storage.
My neighbours were not pleased with me.
Why give so much, they asked.
Give what everyone else gives.
I didn't have a good answer for that either.
Marriage Changed Nothing
The girl got married and came back to the same building, in the same job, married to another sweeper from another society nearby.
The clothes came out in time. Handed over to them.
Some days later, our garbage, this time with extra stuff from the cleaning, sat outside, untouched, till noon.
We assumed she'd simply missed the flat.
The next day, she told us plainly. Too heavy.
She wasn't touching it without extra payment.
My wife wasn't surprised. I was.
Months on, it happened again.
This time it was about Diwali boni (bonus).
We'd been out when she came collecting, and missed her.
Every year we'd paid a hundred rupees against the usual eleven.
That seemed to count for nothing now.
I paid the hundred rupees again. And I told her the same thing I'd told her brother.
Go and find other work.
An office.
A factory.
Anything.
And please, send your children to school.
My family looked at me like I'd said something rude at a funeral.
Doors That Never Opened
I still don't know where those children are now.
The ones who weren't even born yet, back when I was busy giving unwanted advice about self-respect to people who hadn't asked for mine.
Some doors, it turns out, you can knock on for years and they still won't tell you what's really behind them.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff
