Character 8 A Broke 77-year-old Man Living In A 140 Sq.Ft. Hut

Character 8

A Broke 77-year-old Man Living In A 140 Sq.Ft. Hut

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I must be one of the luckiest people in Mumbai, I feel so. You know why? Tell me how many of you can enjoy the stars twinkling in the night? Hardly a few! Right? During the night, I stare at the stars which I can see though the hole in my asbestos-sheet-roof of my 140 sqft ‘house’ which my son has rented for me.

It is not out of wish, but out of compulsion that I have to stare at the stars every night. I spent my youth raising my 4 kids in a small room of 285 sq. ft. Then I spent the early part of my old age in a spacious 2 BHK house in Mumbai. And then finally, I am spending the last days of my life in a 140 sq. ft. hut in the slums in Dharavi.

It all started with me moving to the city of dreams: Mumbai. In my village – Keriya –in the lower part of Rajkot city in Gujarat, I had an ordinary mansion, 2 bullocks, 1 buffalo, and 5 acres of tillable land. At the age of 30, I had 4 kids. For the betterment of their future, I moved to Mumbai. I thought that with my kids as a part of the modern culture, they would turn out to be better citizens and better kids. Only if I had a crystal ball to see my future!

I arrived in Mumbai in the late 1960s. I took a 285 sq ft home on rent and my family, i.e. my wife and 4 children, shared the space with all the love and caring. Without any education but with all the energy and strength of a young man, I started working in the diamond cutting unit in the south of Mumbai. You know what, I used to get up at 4.30 in the morning and leave for office which was 2.5 hrs from my house. Working in inhuman conditions was just normal for me. I worked for 12 hours a day and that too 4 hours continuously. I used to take only 2 breaks of 10 minutes. While at work, I avoided drinking water so that I need not waste time in visiting the loo. I was the hardest working employee of the firm - Jethalal DiamondWala. Within 8 years of such hard work, health problems started to show their ugly faces. It started with piles, followed by asthma and arthritis. At the age of 38, I was engulfed by 3 deadly health problems. By this time, my kids had become pre-teens. With time, demands of my kids increased too. Mumbai is one of the costliest cities in the world. When Ajay – my eldest son – got admitted in a hospital for typhoid, I had no option but to sell one of my kidneys to raise the funds necessary for treating him.

Till the late 1980s, everything went fine. All my kids were well placed in their professional and personal lives. Savitri, my wife, and I were well in our mid fifties. This is normally the time when the children need to give their parents all the love, attention, and support. All that Savitri and I wished for was respect, time and sense of importance from our children. But, unfortunately these were few things that Ajay, Sejal, Vijay and Bhavna couldn’t give us.

As time passed by, Savitri and I contracted Diabetes and Low Blood Pressure. Ajay got married to a very beautiful girl named Angela, a Christian. The worst part wasn’t that we weren’t asked. It was that we weren’t even told about the marriage! It was when one day we saw Angela at home that we realized that we were seeing our eldest daughter-in-law. Office work was more important than anything else for Angela. A year later, Savitri and I became grandparents. Ajay was now living in a plush 750 sq ft house in the most posh area of Mumbai. He called us to stay with him. Savitri and I were as happy as a lark. We felt as if God had listened to our pleas and made our son realize our importance. But, we were wrong. Ajay, a cunning marketing manager was shrewd not only in business but also in personal life. He had called us just to baby-sit his son. Savitri and I showered all the love and affection on Arav, our doting grandson.

We used to be available for Arav 24X7. Savitri used to sing loris to make Arav go to sleep. In fact, while Arav used to sleep on one lap of Savitri, I used to sleep on the other. I can never ever forget those days when Savitri pampered both the kids – Arav and me! Holding the little hands of Arav made me so happy! I recollected the childhood of my kids- the times when my kids started to walk on their feet for the first time. Such moments are few of the most important moments in the lives of parents! Every time Arav giggled and waved hands to call me, the happiness that filled my heart is indescribable. I used to see Ajay in him. There wasn’t even a single moment of dullness in our lives with Arav around. It was like Arav was the reason why we were happy and alive. Angela would never bother about Arav when we were around. We thought that this behavior of hers was because of her trust on the care that we gave to our dear grandson. But we were wrong! She was busy with opening a new beauty parlour in the society. She didn’t have time to be with her child. She found the perfect baby-sitters in Savitri and me. The best thing was she didn’t even have to pay us! After all, we were ‘family members’!

Three years passed by. That cute boy was now in Senior Kindergarten and now he could do most of things by himself. Angela’s beauty parlour was in full swing. She appointed another lady to take care of the daily activities of the parlour. She started giving more time to look after her dear Arav. Time had come for us to leave.

Ajay and his wife started thinking about the ways in which they could get rid of us. Angela started finding faults in even the small ways in which we lived our life. On one Sunday, Angela had invited six of her business partners for lunch. While Angela was busy chit-chatting with them, Savitri took the onus of making the lunch for all of us. Somehow, Savitri was not feeling well. She forgot to add salt in daal. I was busy playing with Arav in our room. Ajay came to our room and said “papa, I am taking Arav to the drawing room. Angela’s business partners want to play with him. Aap thodi der newspaper padh lo…” After sometime, Savitri joined me in our room and we we were discussing smoothing related to one story that Savitri was planning to tell Arav. 40 minutes passed by. We were waiting for Angela to call us for lunch. We thought that we all would have a hearty lunch together. Suddenly, Angela shouted out loudly “maa, kya hai ye? Daal mein namak kyun nahi dala?” Savitri went to the dining hall and Angela gave her a vamp-like look and shouted at her again in front of Ajay, Arav and business partners! Savitri gulped down that instance of insult.

We started realizing that for Ajay and Angela, we were nothing but a liability. A pair of old chairs which didn’t fit well in the new, plush and state-of-the-art house! We now no longer contributed to the house. And more than anything, Ajay had to bear all the inflated medical bills of our ailments. As a first step towards his goal, Ajay contacted his siblings to check if they could give us shelter. Ajay called up his siblings and argued that Savitri and I had stayed with him for 4 years and now it was time for other siblings to take care of us. But, all the other 3 siblings disowned the responsibility of taking care of the ailing old couple. Sitting in the room next to Ajay’s, Savitri and I were listening to entire conversation. Tears couldn’t stop flowing from my eyes. Savitri was lucky to have an ear-problem which cut her hearing ability considerably. I couldn’t imagine what I heard. When Savitri and I lived in the 285 sq ft house, we had given our children every possible joy and toy. Savitri and I spent our middle age in those 4 walls of the 285 sq ft house. We had thought that our four children would turn out to be the four pillars in our old age. But now, none of the children wanted the old ailing couple to be with them.

My own sons and daughters had their own flimsy reasons for not accepting us! We had to face excuses such as -“our plush society will start frowning upon us if we take you in our house. So we are sorry papa” or “we won’t have time to spend with you both. And being alone in the home will make your life more boring. So we can’t keep you.”

Savitri thought “enough was enough”. She couldn’t bear the insult and torture that life had gifted her in lieu of all the love and affection to her kids. She couldn’t bear the fact that she was no more wanted by anyone in the world. She cursed God for giving such heartless kids. One fateful morning she went to a nearby temple like she did every day. A calm river flows nearby that temple.

The same evening, the local newspaper had the headline “a 60 year old woman drowns in the river next to the Kaalimaataa temple.”  That 60 year old lady was none other than Savitri. I was shattered. I lost my voice. I felt as if I had lost my soul. I had lost the person whom I loved the most. We had spent 40 years of happiness, pain, love, laughter, and sadness. Now I was left alone to bear the pain of my solitary life. I suffered a stroke and was then admitted to a nearby clinic. After 2 days of unconsciousness, when I opened my eyes, I found a nurse sitting beside me. I inquired the nurse if any relative or kid had come to see me. The nurse replied that one person named Ajay had come to give the money to clinic. Whatever cost incurs on my name would be borne by Ajay. The nurse handed over a letter to me. I read the letter and closed my eyes. That day I wished I were a total illiterate person. Tears started flowing from my eyes. Each tear was like a silent scream straight from my heart. Who says ‘men don’t cry’???

In that letter was an address where I was supposed to spend the rest of my life. After a fortnight, I was discharged from the clinic. I then went to the address mentioned in the letter. It was one of the shabbiest rooms in the slums of Dharavi. The house was just of 140 sq ft. It had 3 walls of rusted tin, a fan, a vessel half filled with water, a tube-light, a rusted cot and a thin tattered mattress.

I get a Money-Order worth Rs.1000 every month. Now, the stars in the dark sky are my best friends. I talk to them. I do know that my dear wife Savitri is somewhere there amidst those stars. I am trying my best to find out which star she exactly is. When I talk to the stars in the night, the slum kids gather around my hut to get amusement out of my conversation with stars. They feel that I am mad. I don’t scold them. I know that they are now just small kids. They will understand my situation when they are 77 years old, thrown out of house and lives of dear ones. I get up every morning praying to God to help me get through the whole day as soon as possible so that I can talk to my best friends again. And the conversation isn’t one-sided. The stars talk to me too. It’s just that a normal and happy human being won’t have the ability to listen to what stars say to me.

Even in the midst of such drudgery in life, I try my best to find out happiness. I amuse the kids near my home with stories and jokes. Their smiles and giggles is what makes me long for the next day when I can tell them new stories and jokes. I am now popular in the slums as the “kahaniyon wale baba”. These kids are the only reason why I haven’t thought of committing suicide. Because of my good nature and good deeds, my neighbors sometimes care to invite me for snacks or dinner or breakfast. My immediate neighbor makes very good Poha. Whenever I eat Poha, it reminds me of Savitri. My kids and I used to love the Poha she used to make.

Till this day no one has cared whether I am alive or not and tomorrow is not going to be any different. The day I lose my vision, I would miss talking to my best friends—the stars in the Milky Way. That day I would surely breathe my last.

I just pray to God that He shouldn’t make me a human being again in my next life. It’s better to be something other than a human being because what I have seen in my 77 years on earth, I don’t want to see that again. Let me see how long I get the Money-Order. A day will surely come when the Money-Order will be returned to the post office.