The doorbell chimes every weekday morning at 6.30 am to indicate she’s arrived. Gritting my teeth, my eyes barely open, I stumble in my somnolent state to answer the door. Every morning I ask myself if I should leave the door quietly unlocked at around midnight just before I doze off so that she can quietly walk in without ringing the damned doorbell; every morning I decide against it. No, too risky. Sangeeta herself would be aghast if she came to know. After all, she’s almost family now.
Sangeeta has worked for us as a domestic part-time help for years and years—ten and counting. Has seen the kids grow into adults. Has witnessed bouts of bickering amongst us and dismissed those moments with a quiet shake of her head. Yes, almost family.
Her day starts at 5 am every day, come rain or shine. She wakes up her husband and her four children, washes up, and feeds them before heading out. The family of six lives in one room in a tenement, like many such migrant families who come every year to the city to eke out a better life for themselves. She sends her children to school—at least she used to before the pandemic changed our lives—and during the lockdown, got them to continue their classes online with the help of a smartphone. The rent for that single room is Rs. 8000 per month. She works in three households daily to make ends meet. She walks from her tenement in the hot sun to each of the houses she works in daily and covers several kilometres a day on foot. During the day she is bending, stretching, standing, or squatting all the time while performing the household chores that she is paid for—dusting, sweeping, swabbing, washing dishes, and cutting vegetables. Then at the end of the day, she walks back home to cook dinner for her family. She does it day in and day out. Smilingly, stoically.
Try living her life for just one day—I wouldn’t dare—and you’ll realise how back-breaking it is. My family realizes how much we need her every time she doesn’t turn up for work. Which is rare, of course, but it does happen. It is mainly Sangeeta who is the pivot around which her family revolves, the one on whom the kids depend to secure a better future for themselves. Her husband, who’s a bit of a layabout always in and out of jobs as a security guard, chips in when he can, which is not often.
Imran the garbage collector turns up with his cart and his huge white sack to pick up our garbage daily. Except on Eid or when it is raining cats and dogs. Without fail, without fanfare. He collects it quietly from outside our front door without giving us an inkling when he does it. On the days he cannot make it due to ill health or some other reason, he sends someone from his family instead. There has never been a gap of more than one day when the garbage has not been collected from outside our door by Imran all these years. Never!
Do you remember the horrible days of the first lockdown during the months of April to July last year? The panic-stricken authorities and RWA’s, for fear of the Covid 19 spreading, had shut down almost all services. All restaurants, shops, service centres had their shutters down, remember? Zomato and Swiggy tee shirts were in demand among the couriers and service providers just to be able to enter the various colonies in Delhi NCR, because only food deliveries were being allowed in—I kid you not. The big guns Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal had virtually shut down their services as their delivery boys had either escaped the city to trudge home, or were unable to enter colonies by the guards at the gates who had become a law unto themselves. Who saved us during that period? Who ensured that we could get our milk, bread, eggs, fruits, and vegetables on a daily basis to sustain our families? These were the local kirana shops in our colonies and neighbourhoods. Braving the risk of infection—without exaggerating, I’d go to the extent of saying risking their lives—these bravehearts kept their Safal and their Mother Dairy and their Jai Bhawani Stores open throughout the worst months of the pandemic. Not just for profit—I’d like to believe it was also out of a sense of duty to the public. They were there for us when the big guns of online shopping had stopped firing. Though Amazon, Reliance, and other superstores may one day wipe these kirana shops out of existence, I hope we do not allow this to happen. They deserve our support.
Bahadur the car cleaner is another hero of mine. Whether it is a freezing January morning or a sultry July day, I see him cleaning my car and those of some others in the neighbourhood regularly, using a minimum amount of water and cycling away to wherever he lives after a busy morning’s work. And this is after a hard day’s night, where he has kept up all night as a security watchman guarding some house in the neighbourhood. Because one low-paying job isn’t enough to sustain his family; he needs the paltry extra income from washing cars to send money to his mother back home in the village where he comes from.
From villages all over India, they come to the cities with hope in their hearts and dreams in their eyes to make a better life for themselves and their children. Maids. Drivers. Street vendors. Plumbers. Cobblers. Security guards. Liftmen. Waiters. Garbage collectors. The list is endless. Shunned in this country by virtue of their caste. Invisible generally, as far as we’re concerned. Except when they don’t turn up, for whatever reason. Yet quietly performing essential services for us, services we take for granted. Our lives are so dependent on such people, and yet we don’t give them a second thought.
Let us, therefore, spare a thought for these everyday heroes. Let us close our eyes and try to empathise with the kind of tribulations they face on almost a daily basis—threats of eviction from the landlord, no rice to cook the next meal, standing in a long queue to fill a bucket with water, no money for medical treatment, sweating in oppressive heat in a single room without an AC or cooler, shivering while trying to sleep on a winter night with not enough to cover their bodies…… I could go on. Let us thank God we don’t have to live the lives they do. Humbling, isn’t it?
What can we do for them? To start with, we could show them a little respect and appreciation. We could show some compassion, take an interest in their lives. After all, are they not a part of ours? Help them a bit financially to the extent we’re able to. Renew their prepaid phone subscriptions. Give them our old clothes or blankets which are still in good condition; our children’s hand-me-downs when they don’t fit anymore. Give them a little money on festive occasions so that they can buy something for their families. Take them to the family doctor when required. Make a difference in their lives, however small. They deserve it.
Move over, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. The real heroes are here in our own homes, in our own backyard.
Beetashok Chatterjee is the author of ‘Driftwood’, a collection of stories about Life at Sea, and ‘The People Tree’, another collection of stories about ordinary people with extraordinary experiences. A retired merchant ship’s captain by profession, he lives in New Delhi with his memories of living more than 40 years on the waves.
His book is available on Amazon. Click here.
Comments