Across the River

I grew up as a pampered child in a relatively affluent, Hindi-speaking, Hindu Brahmin family in Calcutta. We never lacked for anything, but the life-style at home was simple. After graduating, I wanted to work for a while, to learn about life outside the classroom.

While my life in Calcutta was comfortable and privileged, I disliked the polluted city environment. I wanted to go to a rural area, and work for the poor there. I had no clear idea about what I might do. I just wanted to help out. I met someone who worked for a social organisation. She had said, “If you are really concerned about the environment, and about people, then it is in the city that the problems are most acute. Its here that living conditions are most difficult. Are you not being an escapist, hoping to go off to some village, to fulfil some vague desire? Should you not be here, recognise what exists around you, and try to do something?” This made me think. Trying to do something right here in the city was definitely far more challenging. She had suggested I contact her husband, who was working in a slum in Howrah.

So one morning in November 1997, I set out, crossed the Hooghly river driving over the new Vidyasagar Bridge, and reached an office in a narrow bye-lane off the Grand Trunk Road. There I met Mr Ramaswamy.

He was bearded and dressed in khadi kurta-pyjamas. He said he was working in Priya Manna Basti, a slum of over 40,000 people, mostly labouring, Urdu-speaking, Muslim households. He described the living conditions in the slum. He talked about the setting up of the organisation to take up a long-term programme of community, slum and city renewal – beginning from the most poverty-ridden, environmentally degraded slums.

He did not look directly into my eyes. He did not smile. He appeared to be pre-occupied, far away, as if he was making an effort to come out of some other pressing concern to talk to me. I had never met anybody like him. This was a very serious person. The whole air in the two-room office conveyed a seriousness of purpose. And there was a strong ethical tone in all that he said. I knew that there were many groups who worked for poor people, but I had been cynical about their efforts. This was something else. Here was stark reality.

He asked me questions - which I answered spontaneously. “Why are the poor poor?” I had never thought about this. “Will you be able to work in this milieu?” The place, the reality around me, the work of this organisation, the sincerity – all came as a blow. Here was something that I had never expected. This was very different from anything I had seen or felt. This was serious. I was unable to be myself – my usual, jovial, happy-go-lucky self. I was ready to get into it, but I was very uncomfortable at the difference from my normal self that this environment seemed to call for. I wanted to learn.

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I worked with Mr Ramaswamy and his group at Howrah over the next nine months. It is difficult for me to describe adequately what this has meant for me. I had wanted practical experience. I was lucky to be in the right place and under the right guidance. My family did not support me and I had to fight for it. I had to stop working when my father finally put his foot down. Nine months! A new life is formed and born from a mother's womb. I too was reborn from P.M. Basti.

The very first impression was a powerful one. Walking through the lanes and bye-lanes, it was as if I was in a dream. I was filled with a delight, as if I couldn’t have enough of this place, as if I could go on wandering here all day long. Later, while surveying the slum, I had a great desire to explore this environment, every nook and cranny, to go deeper and know ever more. My own world ceased to exist for me here. This place seemed exalted. While in college, I had visited Tura, in Meghalaya, and been moved by the place. But that was because it was so remote. PM Basti was right here, it was a slum in the city.

A team of three women from Hyderabad were on a week’s visit, to help get a women’s programme off the ground in PM Basti. They had a spontaneous intimacy and rapport with the slum women. In meetings, I was struck by the difference between talking down to the people, and sitting with them and discussing something. Every individual is a person. One may have an agenda or a plan to begin with, but if something was to be done by the ordinary people themselves, then this can be a long, slow process. I was from a college, where one had learnt to be organised. Social work, I thought, was something that should be systematically undertaken. Yet, did ‘professionalism’ not leave out something? I was confused. I would note down my thoughts and impressions. But I felt uneasy and impolite doing this amidst others.

A woman who had been at our meeting and therefore away till evening, was beaten by her drunk husband when she returned home. She came back to the group and tearfully described her plight. We went with her to speak to her husband, and were able to calm him down, get him to admit his wrong-doing. This was Razia. She made a strong impression on me. She was tall, dark, thin, erect, striking looking, probably in her mid-thirties. There was something in her bearing that conveyed great strength.

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Shahida, her brother Sarwar, and Anguri and Huma were my colleagues. All of them lived in the slum and came from quite a humble background. All except Huma appeared to be serious. I felt I too needed to mould myself. Mr Ramaswamy had said: be open, be yourself. I tried to be courteous and trusting with all of them. I became friendly with Huma. She was around nineteen and about to take her high school final examinations. Her warmth drew me. She had an irrepressible independent spirit, that seemed to be utterly at odds with the milieu she lived within. Shahida was about forty, stern and loud. She had a master’s degree in Urdu and taught at a nearby school in the morning. She was married, with five children. I often found her irritating. I reasoned that she had been through a lot in life and that I should be more understanding.

Anguri was about thirty, had completed high school, and had discontinued her studies after she got married and was expecting her first child. She was now a mother of two small boys. She and her husband were also looking after her aged father, an unmarried sister and two brothers. I was impressed by her equanimity and quiet dignity.

Then there was Sarwar. It struck me sometimes that he was casual and insincere. He also seemed to have a lascivious look. But I drove such thoughts away. Maybe this was only my imagination. Both Huma and Anguri appeared to be dominated by Shahida and Sarwar. I felt they all held something back, and were never fully open with me. A number of other school-going girls joined the group as volunteers. But Shahida and Sarwar somehow saw to it that they did not get close to me.

Prodyut was the other outsider in our group. He looked after office matters. He had a master’s degree in zoology, lived nearby, and was closely associated with the ruling CPI(M) party, which was locally dominant. He was a social worker by nature and had a good understanding of the slum environment, the people, their attitudes. I got along well with him, though we only talked about the work.

Mr Ramaswamy was there to guide me. After the first few days, I felt I was in the presence of a teacher, someone from the ancient guru-shishya tradition of learning. Nobody had ever spoken to me like he did. I had never had a teacher like him. Deep within me, I felt gladness, that this place and this work would be good for me, that I would learn from it. He never said anything directly. He just gave a broad suggestion and said the rest should be thought about and attempted oneself, as best as one could. He constantly talked about spiritual inspiration, self development, character development. When I was working in the office, I felt he was observing me and others in the minutest detail. I often felt that I had made mistakes. His silence would seem loaded. I would feel that I had been unable to check my bubbliness and feel silly. He appeared to talk in riddles. If he said something, apparently unrelated, some anecdote, or some story about Lord Buddha, I felt this was somehow linked to something I had done.

Mr Ramaswamy did blast me several times, chiding me for being self-absorbed and insensitive.

When I went to bed at night, it was with happiness, looking forward to waking up and returning to PM Basti. Though I was physically at home, in my thoughts I was there. I felt no fatigue, no boredom, no aversion to working, no desire for any other diversion. I was deeply satisfied with my situation. I was inspired. There were problems at home, with my father, and sometimes unpleasantness. But when I was in PM Basti, all this receded in my consciousness.

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I surveyed the slum to prepare a map. Literacy classes in Urdu were also being started for women. We mobilised women for the classes, found places where the classes could be held – since the women did not want to leave their compounds - and motivated educated girls who could teach. A literacy primer was compiled. The volunteer teachers were guided.

There was an old lady, Asea, with whom I became friendly. I would go over to her hut and sit with her, just listening to her talking. She talked about her husband and her three sons. Her eyes moved me. They had a glitter that defied her old age. And her smile. She was a very regular student in the literacy classes. But she did not have a good memory, and could not remember things. So during the three-month literacy course, she only managed to learn to write her name.

A literacy class was stopped by the landlady of a building, whose son was a major local hoodlum. The learners cowered in fear and drove us away. I realise now they had no option. I learnt quickly about the nexus of politics and crime in the slum. The people are basically trapped in a particular situation and they have to act in a certain way because of that. One has to go on working, for a long time, to make an impact on people’s thinking.

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A new field office was started. This was a big thing for me. There was some delay and inefficiency owing to poor coordination. But I was still very upbeat. This was like a temple, of service. So if Mr Ramaswamy lit a cigarette in the office, I used to get very annoyed. I felt very strongly about the place. It must be respected, and kept clean and wholesome.

I had wanted yellow stars painted on the blue false ceiling so that it would look like a roof-less room, open to the world and universe. And floral designs on the walls of the passage at the entrance, which would greet the visitors with a freshness. But I could not get these done within the time in hand. Nor the mural on a wall that Mr Ramaswamy had been so excited about. As if in compensation, I paid special attention to the corner he occupied. I bought a table lamp, and when he thanked me, I felt relieved.

Razia kept the office clean. I became very attached to Soni, her five year-old daughter. Whenever I think of PM Basti, I think of Soni. I have not been able to get over this yet. I would reach the office early, at 9 o’ clock, and until 11, when the others came in, I used to be with Soni. Nagma was another neglected child. And Shehnaz, who lived with her old grandmother, sleeping on the stairway of the building opposite our office. Three very bright, lovable, self-willed children. It was impossible to make them sit in one place. But just being with them, and paying full attention to them, one could still do something that could also hopefully be of some educational value for them.

Soni watered all the plants. Then made the place neat, arranging papers and books. She was naughty, but very observant and very particular about what should be where. I never told her to do this, but she would do it on her own. Razia used to come and sweep the floor. After that it was party time – summersaults, clapping of hands, gesticulating, dancing, singing Bhojpuri songs. All the girls except Soni used to copy the Hindi film stars’ dances. Soni did her own things. She wasn’t conscious of her surroundings, being entirely lost in her own world. At times when I was paying attention to other children, she used to get angry, but winning back her heart was not difficult. When she saw me working she never disturbed me. She too would fetch a slate, sit next to me and start scribbling. She drew funny looking creatures with two antennae and four bird-like legs. When asked, she would say they were the Urdu alphabets.

Shahida and the others sometimes made fun of my attachment to Soni. This hurt me. I wondered why they were like this, when I had not offended them in any way. Surely they lacked something which prevented them from seeing the good in others? What kind of teacher was Shahida?

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A young, pretty, newly-married woman had attended one of our meetings. A fortnight later she was dead, of some kind of poisoning. Another elderly woman had begun responding to our coaxing that she play an active role. Then she just died, all of a sudden. Such things, the poverty, the squalour, the filth, the sicknesses, the people’s difficulties, the inhuman deprivation – would drive me to depression. I would ask myself and God : WHY ? If only I could do something to make life a bit better for them. But how? I felt so handicapped and inadequate. I realised I needed to deepen my understanding. One could not change life for everyone. So I’d tell myself: Don’t get affected by it. You have seen it all, and it couldn’t be worse. But you are really fortunate. You should be doing something for them. You should be able to do something effective. This became a personal challenge. I still feel this way.

A women’s organisation was being built and a thrift scheme was started. One day there was a meeting with the women. Sarwar and Shaheda, who tended to dominate the discussions, were absent, as was Mr Ramaswamy. So the rest of the group conducted the meeting. Topics like health and hygiene, adult literacy and the thrift scheme were divided amongst them, so that each one had a subject to speak on. Before the meeting they coordinated among themselves. They were all excellent in their presentations. It was more of a group activity rather than a political party-type meeting. That day I really felt confident about my colleagues, especially Anguri.

International Women’s Day, 1998, was observed. Over a hundred women were crammed in the office room. A women’s organisation Idara Ittehad-ul Khawateen (Organisation for Women’s Unity), was formally established. Mr Ramaswamy sang a few songs. At the end of the meeting, there was some spontaneous singing and dancing to the accompaniment of a drum. That for me was the real celebration, and when Razia pushed me forward, I really let myself go. I felt a basic rapport had been established.

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In going to PM Basti, I had crossed several invisible border lines – of class, caste, religion, language and culture. But I had been largely unconscious of this then. This was a Muslim neighbourhood. My only thought was ‘would they accept me?’ I was willing to work hard, learn, and try to be one with them; but would they accept me? While at the office, whenever the call to prayer was recited from the mosque, the women covered their heads. I wanted to do the same, and express respect for their tradition. But something held me back. Would they appreciate it ? Would it be inappropriate, presumptious and disrespectful ?

After a while it struck me that there was no basic difference between Muslims and Hindus. People are the same, and what their religion means for them is also essentially the same. In 1992, during the riots after the destruction of the Babri Mosque, I had been away from Calcutta. My brother had by then become an active supporter of militant Hindu formations. He had even gone to defend a temple in Khidirpur, a Muslim locality. I used to be a blind follower of my brother and so picked up his attitudes, even if I never spoke about them openly. I had concluded that Hindus and Muslims were totally different and could not live together. I had also harboured notions of Muslims being dirty, not keeping their houses clean like us.

After working in PM Basti it became clear to me that Hindus and Muslims were essentially the same. I was a vegetarian. They were non-vegetarian. That was their culture. We should respect one another’s culture. Live and let live. If somebody strongly insisted that I share their food, and if I felt that refusing this would be rude and offensive, then I was willing to eat what they offered. But such an occasion did not arise.

Religion was about one’s life, one’s actions. Islam seemed to connote a certain discipline in people’s conduct. It was not a matter to be taken lightly. This appeared to be quite close to the Brahminical ethos in my own family, though not necessarily in my wider social milieu, where people could be casual or frivolous about God or religion. My parents observed Hindu rites and prayers, but did not impose this on us. Though I did not believe in idol-worship, I liked visiting old temples for the peaceful atmosphere there. I felt a powerful, sacred presence. I believed in prayer. A temple for me was a place that represented a continuity with an ancient way of life; something to inculcate values of honesty, goodness, piety. As far as I could gather, Islam preached the same.

I wondered how clear or strong people’s faith was. Was it something that could withstand the difficult environment of poverty and deprivation? The sight of a group of small children trooping to their Koran recitation classes was something very touching. But what did the children pick up and retain? And how was it that despite this conditioning, there was so much of meanness, exploitation and apathy ?

The day after Bakri Id, I was on my way back home after work. As usual, Nagma’s granny called out to me from her window. When I looked inside her house I was taken aback. There was the head of a cow, skin peeled, placed on a wooden slab. The eyes seemed to be still alive. I feel very attached to cows; for me they symbolize peace, motherhood, purity. I still remember the look in her eyes. A week earlier, while doing my map survey, I found a cow on the terrace of a five-story. I wondered how they had brought her up the narrow staircase and passages of the building.

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Children who did not attend school, or who were working, were identified and their parents were contacted. The people in PM Basti could be divided into those who were educated, and sent their children to school as a matter of course, and those who were almost entirely outside the pale of education. I was surprised to find that the girls were sent to school and that there was no male-child bias. In fact, in many poor households, people felt there was no point in the boys going to school, since they would have to take up some manual work sooner or later. People had also started preferring educated daughters-in-law.

A teacher’s training programme was organised for volunteer teachers, and a non-formal school was started for the children. The school curriculum was prepared. I enjoyed being with children. I was thrilled that I now had an opportunity to work with them. Now I could finally be myself.

But the way the classes were run upset me. I was very sensitive about it because I had been involved from the very beginning. Alas! The school too had to be a serious one, children had to remain quiet; “no talking or you will be sent home!”, Shahida would shout. She had the loudest voice and used to shout the most. Children of that age are very good in imitating their adults, that is how they learn. Surely, if the teacher expects her students to be disciplined and silent they should have that quality themselves? If you want the children to be loving to others then the teacher should be loving.

I remember Shahida told the children a story about a greedy man and she held forth on how greedy people are. I was sitting outside the classroom, listening. Suddenly I felt a rage within me as I imagined them going home and telling their parents how greedy people are, and that even they would grow up that way. I did not hear Shahida say at the end that the children should try to be good human beings. I silently withdrew myself from the school work. I felt miserable. But with each passing day I felt more strongly about this because I used to be present and see the way the classes were going. My patience was tested. The only relief from the agony was PM Basti. Whenever I felt stifled, I took a walk in the lanes and bye-lanes. I felt at home and secure here.

Sarwar, Shahida and a local school teacher talked about bringing in discipline. “It is necessary for the teachers to be strict with the children and they should fear us.” I remained quiet, and just wondered where this kind of teacher-student relationship was prescribed. And to teach children that people are greedy.

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By the end of a month, the situation resolved itself. Shahida and Sarwar, together with three young volunteer teachers, left the group. But not before they had accused me of being intolerant, prejudiced, haughty. Anguri and Huma stayed on, and over the following months, with the help of a few volunteers, managed to re-organise and consolidate the whole programme. A children and women’s rally for literacy was organised. Never before had women from PM Basti come out of their homes to participate in a rally on a social issue.

But before that I had to leave. There had been unpleasantness at home, about my marriage, about working in Howrah, about anything and everything. Mr Ramaswamy advised me that under the circumstances it was best that I obeyed my father. I stopped going to PM Basti.

I often woke up at night crying, missing Soni. The attachment to Soni, and the separation, were very painful. Later, I found out that she too had taken my absence very badly. I was amazed and moved: so there was some kind of bond after all! Since then I’ve found myself staying aloof from children. Even my brother’s child.

I did return to PM Basti, almost five months later. I had been invited for Razia’s sister’s wedding. But a few weeks before that, I had a rendezvous with Anguri and Huma in Calcutta. How much we talked, laughed and joked. Anguri imitated Mr Ramaswamy’s exasperation with the boys who had gone to visit the science museum. Huma described how during a visit to the Victoria Memorial, the boys had discovered a dwarfish statue of some English personage, and couldn’t stop slapping its face. I was in splits. I have visited PM Basti a few more times since then. But now I am only the occasional visitor.

Poverty places people at such a disadvantage, denying the nurturing conditions for self-development. As a result, people across the social and class barriers are so far apart in their capabilities for self-realisation. As if they have grown up and gone in opposite directions, and can never meet. When one sees nastiness in an environment of poverty, that is understandable. But this only helps to highlight even more the nastiness of those who are not poor. There are good and bad people everywhere. However, when one sees simplicity, humility, strength of character among the poor, this is something deeply inspiring and humbling. Razia’s husband – what an evil man. But still she was so pure inside. She just did her work, was never lethargic. She kept saying she would leave her husband. But she didn’t. She remains behind for him. She has the strength within her to withstand this. Its not at all easy. There must be so many women like her, with similar stories. But Razia was the one I knew personally and felt for.

Razia, Anguri – their circumstances, and notwithstanding that, their spirit – are deeply inspiring. For me, they, Huma and Asea represented PM Basti. These people did not know my environment. I did not know theirs. But we could still relate to one another, be fond of and kind to one another. They were unaware of worldly sophistication and formal learning, but they were not fundamentally ignorant. They were intelligent. Their limitations had to be seen and understood in the context of their social environment, which had conditioned them.

Will poverty ever end? It has been around for ages. And it grows. The gap between the rich and the poor – will it ever close? Is this what God intended? Must there be rich and poor, just like there are good and bad, high and low? I don’t think this gap will ever be closed.

It’s unlikely that I will ever give my best again to something like I did in Howrah. I am the poorer for being cut off from PM Basti, from Soni. I had grieved over this. But I found that this grief was also a self-annihilating means of becoming one, within myself, with those I had been so rudely separated from. And this was something that brought me calm, peace, and an inexplicable sense of gladness that is simultaneously tinged with sadness. It gives me strength to go through life, taking things as they come.

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Notes

Bakri Id : the Muslim festival commemorating Prophet Abraham's near sacrifice of his son in obedience to God’s will.

Bhojpuri : a dialect of Hindi spoken in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Brahmin : the priestly and scholarly caste.

CPI(M) : The Communist Party of India (Marxist), the principal member of the Left Front government of the state of West Bengal that has held office since 1977.

Guru-shishya : literally, teacher-student. In ancient India, boys from the priestly, scholarly and soldier classes left home and went to a gurukul (“teacher’s abode”), usually located in a forest, where students lived, learnt and served as members of the family of the rishi (sage).

Hindi : the principal language of northern India.

Howrah : an industrial city of about one and a half million, across the river Hooghly from Calcutta, in eastern India. Howrah is the rail and road link between Calcutta and the rest of India.

Hyderabad : a city in southern India, the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Khadi : Indian hand-spun, hand-woven cloth. For Mahatma Gandhi khadi was a symbol of India and its self-sufficient village economy.

Kurta-pyjama : Indian clothing, with a long shirt worn over a pair of pyjamas.

Meghalaya : a state in north-eastern India.

Urdu : a major language of the subcontinent and northern India, similar to Hindi in syntax and grammar but with vocabulary from Persian and Arabic. It is written in Arabic script.