By Amiya Prayas
[newdemocracyworld.org]

Editor’s Note: This is a story we received recently from Collectivities, a revolutionary organization in Faridabad, India, with which New Democracy is in contact. The story was circulated on the Internet by various people during the India-Pakistan war this spring and summer. It gives a moving portrait of working class life in India and has meaning for working people everywhere. Kargil is a mountainous border region of India that was invaded this spring by Pakistan. [From Nov-Dec 1999 New Democracy newsletter]

Now my lunch is ready on the table - 'rou' fish that I had cooked last night and rice. I remember my brother, my cousin brother who is now in army. For a long time I have lost contacts with him.

He was then very small. He had just started going to school. Everybody used to gaze at him when he eats. He eats a lot. He is hungry always. He looks at anyone eating anything with his eyes protruded and saliva dropping down his tongue. His mother, i.e., my auntie, scolds him and catches him by ear, 'you eating-monger, wouldn't let others eat. Go away. Go! Water the plants in the yard or go to study.' He cries and leaves the place.

Ours was a joint family consisting of fifteen members. All we stayed in a village except for my father who was working in a distant small city. He was the only earning member in the family. We did not have much food to eat always. We never willingly share 'thali' with my little cousin, Badal. He could eat away everything!

We all grew together. Till the completion of my upper primary education we shared the same poverty in that huge joint family. I obtained National Scholarship. My father began to see bright future in me and wanted me to study in the city. We moved to the city and left behind our uncles, aunts, cousin brothers and sisters in the village. My eldest cousin brother, by then, had got a job, a job of a schoolteacher. My eldest uncle takes care of paddy fields. We have a few small paddy fields in the village. My uncle and brothers work in the fields and grow vegetables in our small yard. Harvest does not last round the year and vegetables are not sufficient anytime. My brothers often catch fish and my auntie sets crab-traps in rainy seasons. Since my father has to run a family in the city he is not in a position to send much money as he used to send earlier. Once in a year he sends clothes for the entire family.

Whenever we go to village or somebody comes from village we talk about so many things, about paddy fields, vegetables, each others' schooling, marks in the half yearly exams and final exams etc. But whenever we talk about Badal the same old story, 'nowadays he is eating like that of a horse. His meal is equivalent to a meal of three to four persons! Nobody can feed him!' Everybody laughs, so also Badal. I have seen him when he was hardly twelve years old. He was growing healthy. Unbelievable to my eyes, he works in the sun for hours together without showing any sign of fatigue. A small child as he could be but never complains about food. Everybody likes this quality in him.

He was never good at studies. Nobody was bothered about his education nor he was. He flunked once in matriculation exam and managed to pass in the next attempt with much difficulty. That remained his only qualification in the world of technology and progress! Now he is eighteen, tall and strongly built. No one can feed him anymore. No one can clothe him anymore. He is a man. He has to look for his own food and clothing.

Meantime I got selected at IIT, Bombay to continue my higher studies. Before leaving for Bombay I visited my village. I came to know that Badal had ventured to Bombay to work in a factory. So nice! I will also be there. I asked for his address. But nobody could tell. 'Strange! What's the matter?' I inquired. 'It is for sure that he would work in a factory. But which factory and where it is that we don't know. The contractor says that the boys will be kept in different locations. Only when they are given accommodation proper address would be communicated,’ my family members informed. The story looked weird. One of my brothers tried to convince me, 'We have asked him to write to us immediately after he reaches Bombay. I have given him some self-addressed inland letter cards.' I wanted to know the matter in detail. So I was told. 'Badal desperately looked for a job; moved from place to place ... got disappointed wherever he went. In his desperation he saw a ray of hope. One contractor from a nearby village was looking for young boys for recruitment in a factory at Bombay. Incidentally Badal met this person. The contractor gathered some twelve to fifteen persons and took them all to Bombay in a negotiated salary of Rs.1,000/-per month.' Prolonged period of half-filled stomach and drudgery has pushed him into uncertain future, I realised.

I left my contact address with my family members and instructed them to communicate it to Badal as soon as possible. They should not delay either to send me his address. It is not even more than a couple of months I was in Bombay I received a letter from home. It was regarding Badal. With utter dismay I went through the contents. Badal had managed to come back home half- dead. After my semester exams I went to village and heard the rest of his story. 'All these boys were given accommodation in a small single room in a slum. They worked in a factory, lifted iron rods and plates from morning till night. Loading and unloading of iron materials, sometimes they worked at construction sites. They worked for two and a half months. At the end of first month the same contractor gave them only half a month's salary. The reason given for not paying the full amount was that they might run away. For the whole of second month they did not see the contractor. At the end of the month they talked to the operating manager about the salary. He informed that their salaries were already given to the contractor.

These guys were at a loss. They felt terrorised. They are new to this city. They are all new to metropolis. They cannot communicate their state of affairs to anyone for they don't know how to speak in Hindi. They don't have enough money even to buy the return tickets. And their home—two thousand kilometers away! Without money, without ticket they boarded train. Their pocket money got over very soon. No food to eat. Got caught by TTE thrice. At Bhusaval they were jailed for two days and at Secunderabad for eight days. When Badal reached home he was beyond recognition, no flesh on his body, sunken eyes; he has lost his speech. Remains are only a drooping skeletal body. With his faint voice he gasped, 'I have not eaten anything for the past three days. Give me something to eat.'

I did not see Badal around. I inquired about him. I was informed that he has opened a tailoring shop in a nearby village. He gets enough work. He remains so busy that he does not find time to come home. I went to see him. His shop is a small cottage with mud walls and thatched roof. It is by the side of a 'kachha' motorable road near a grazing field. Not a single person around. I entered the shop. He was working with a paddle sewing machine. I managed to control myself when I saw him—he is yet to recover! He stood up to greet me. I could not dare to ask 'how are you?' The whole story is clearly visible on his body. I asked him, 'how long do you work?' 'Till night. There is enough work,’ he replied. 'Do they pay?' I inquired. 'No, not really. But I think the business will pick up. Not a single tailor around.' he said. His voice was low, yet convincing.

He inquired about my studies. We talked for sometime. I mildly joked, 'Are you eating heavily now?' He chuckled. I asked him to come home for lunch. He said, 'No, not now. I will come in the evening.' I left the place. I could hear the only noise that his machine was making in that lonely, sunny, deserted place.

After a year or so I met him once again in the village. Looking healthy though he was not at his best. He was never jovial again. His face was dry and pale. He said, 'I have to work hard. No rest since I have opened the shop. People pay very little. I am not able to give a handful of coins at home. Very difficult to sustain.' I observed that he has several stitches on the seats of trousers that he was wearing.

Later I came to know that he has joined army. It is almost three years now when I met him last. That was the occasion when my brother had expired in an accident. He had rushed home after getting the news. While discussing about his job he expressed his unhappiness. He was very much averse to the life he was leading at army camp. He was in utter disgust when he was describing the hardship he is undergoing and the routine humiliation he has to face. On killings in war he was in his boiling blood, 'If Pakistanis attack us we will kill them.' I asked him, 'Who are the Pakistanis attacking you? Are not they the one like you who have joined army in search of a job? For a piece of bread? And to send money home? Do they attack you of their own? Or, do you attack them of your own?' He kept quiet. I told him, 'The death news of your brother has upset you. And has brought you instantly from Kashmir to Cuttack. Do the Pakistani soldiers have a different heart?' He looked at me strangely. He stayed at home for as long as a month. Before he finally left for Kashmir he told me, 'When I become eligible for pension I will leave the job. I myself don't like to kill anybody.'

Now I remember him very much. Once he had returned home half-dead. This time? I don't know. I am scared. War is already on. Thousands of people are dying. I see Badal in each and everybody of them. They are now dying. They are dying because most of them did not have sufficient food to eat at home. What a pity! And now you ask me for donation in the name of Kargil? Enough! You humiliate them in their daily lives and adore them publicly as patriots! You garland them after having killed them and name them martyrs! You have used them and are using them still. What's the reason for? You lie when you say that they are born patriots and love to be martyrs. Stop this nonsense. I cannot take it anymore. Bring them back home. Bring them back alive. There is enough food on my table—I have cooked it last night.

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