Chapter 2
The new job was a challenge because I had never worked for a wage before and Rs. 13 per day seemed to be selling myself too cheap. But I was picked up in a factory bus at 8 am in the morning and dropped back at 7 pm so commuting did not cost me money. For nightshift days the bus was available to the factory but after the night shift ended there was no bus for the return trip. The night shift was okay for me but many of the workers slept in the rest rooms but this was not my concern. The production department was running the show and many of them did not know me so I sat in a small room and tried to read the quality manuals. I was scared about ithe possibility of accidents because no doctor or compounder or dresser was available for the night shift and I decided to take it up. They told me that the factory was running for 30 years before they recruited me and the owners or the labourers or the union leaders were worried. So it can run the same way for 6 more months and I didn’t want to alter it. Most of the labourers and staff spoke Punjabi or Haryanvi or Hindi and I was not fluent in these languages. So the night shift was a blessing and continued to drift
Drifting is easy because you do not spend your money, time or energy and mostly you are a spectator or a witness. But you pretend to be interested and occasionally nod your head in agreement. Evolution from monkeys to humans took time but having evolved you need not waste time with monkey bath or donkey dance. Remain calm and aloof and pretend that you are part of the tribe. Six months passed and in the meantime I stumbled upon
This meant that I can adapt and survive among strangers and I got a new job in a bank in Connaught Place and I said good bye to Faridabad and Badarpur and it was winter , you will not sweat even after running 6 km to the office and there were coffee houses , pastry shops, sweet shops all around and I forget the the shop floor and started enjoying my new job. When I got my first salary I sent a money order to my mother for Rs. 1000 and that was to announce that I was earning a serious wage and opened a bank account and started saving for the future. But I was not sure whether I should continue to work there or continue to drift elsewhere
I started with trying to explore other avenues of employment and then one Sunday a sixty years plus Punjabi lady stopped me on the road and told me that I had to help her by providing mathematics tution to her son for two hours every day and four hours on Sunday because he was in his ninth standard and he was getting very low marks. I decided to teach this kid mathematics because he was an only son and the parents were afraid he would fail. This was only till the exams and after 3 months he will have to find another teacher. This lady was from Punjab and her husband was from Pakistan and he came to Delhi as a refugee from Pakistan, and he was owning about a dozen taxis and running a taxi hiring business. He didn’t want his son to be a driver . But the son was dreaming about becoming a truck driver in Canada. So every day the child and the father fought and the mother was worried all the time. I did not know how to deal with this conflict and I told them that till he completes his graduation he has to study well and maybe he can go Canada after his parents pass away.
The first day I joined the new job, I walked to the office because the buses were crowded and autos and taxis were prohibitively costly. Unlike Mumbai where taxis were dirt cheap the Delhi taxis were expensive and I did not want to waste money. I walked past the India Gate, the Jan Path and reached the office in 40 minutes and I was an early bird. I had coffee at the Indian Coffee House , and waited till the office opened. The building was beautifully well painted , well maintained and the roads had lots of trees on both sides with a small number of monkeys hopping on the branches. For the first time after reaching Delhi , I was happy relaxed and carefree.
When I left Kerala my family owned 110 acres of land in Kerala on the banks of Bharathapuzha,mostly hills where only Bamboo, the Black Palmyra Trees, Teak, and Cashew grew.This was on two small hills and we had about 20 acres of double crop paddy fields, eight acres of coconut gardens, about 20 cows, goats, poultry, and two residential houses one where I grew up, and other where I slept at nights to prevent pilferage of water at night from the paddy fields. These residential houses had compounds where we grew bananas, mango, jackfruit, pineapple and vegetables and tubers like tapioca and sweet potato. Rationally I could have cultivated this land and lived happily. There was no need to become a refugee in Delhi and become a wage slave. But many believed that wage slavery offered you avenues to grow as a slave, without chains, shackles , and pursue greed and salvation
The stories are circular like staircases in a theatre where movies can be watched. The people who buy the highest priced ticket have to watch the movie from far away , and the people in the front rows are the lumpens of the city. I watched the hoardings but never set foot in a theatre because I understood that movies are illusions and had no morals , or lessons. I had promised my student to take him to an English movie if he passed the ninth standard exam. And when the results were out he had cleared the exams , but I told him I did not have time and offered him money for 5 balcony seats and asked him to take four of his friends.
The five 14 year old boys from Delhi Public School reached the Regal cinema at 9.30 am and flashed the tickets and sat down in balcony seats to celebrate their victory, but the film had a A certificate and they were thrown out at 10 am after the trailers because they were just 14 and the reason was munda bighade jaye.
Shift to Connaught Place had distinct advantages. I could go down the staircase and walk into pastry shops and buy some pastry. The Indian Coffee House was right opposite and I ordered a pot of coffee and carried it to the office in a flask. We can walk around when there was a power failure and reach Narulas and have a biriyani.
Connaught place was a foodie paradise and the Delhi gate Stadium and Feroze Shah Kotla were close by.You can go out for a late lunch and watch the football match. But to watch a Cricket match you needed the permission of the manager. The manager was nice to me because I was the first man to reach and the last man to leave. The early bird gets the worm, good for the early bird. I was branded as mehanati munda, and I was told that the sky is the limit. So I rarely saw the Sun and walked with the moon.
I got out everyday at 9 pm and walked to the bus stop. Buses had sitting space at that time and I got down at Purana Qila and walked home, clutching a small box of pastries for my nephews. There was no need to make my brother feel I was late. The Pastry after the dinner was always welcome , but the fillings were different.
‘Sky is the limit’ is a universal message like my manager used to quote. He was working in Lahore before the partition and had to relocate to Delhi leaving everything behind running for life-mother take your daughter, father take your son , you better run to the city of refuge. I ran to the office , ran back home , because I loved to run in Delhi broad roads , plenty of trees. To some running is an ordeal, to others it is a celebration, celebration of your freedom, the freedom to run.
Life gives you different options but some are still confused because there is so much propaganda about how you should conduct yourselves. Never take free advice. Follow your instincts and choose your private route to hell. Because hell is not where you go after your death. Hell is the mess in your life.
I reflect on what happened to me fifty years before and how I was recruited at a salary of Rs. 13 per day. Beggars make more money by sitting before the steps of a temple, church, mosque or railway station because then there was no minimum wages act in New Delhi and slave labour was rampant. This was a new revelation and I decided to break this cycle of starvation and avenge the loot.
When I was a kid Gulzari Lal Nanda was a minister in the Central cabinet and was home minister and labour minister. But when was the minimum wages Act enacted and when was it implemented. It was enacted in 1948 before I was born and this made it possible to legally pay me Rs. 400 per month in Delhi and make me a wage slave. Gulzari Lal Nanda was a textile mill labourer in Ahmedabad before independence and later he was in the Central cabinet constitutional slavery after the British left or were thrown out. But the pretenders were thinking that they had created a state where people will live with dignity. Most of the people who I was familiar with in Delhi were peons or sweepers. Occasionally walking in the upper class colonies I will find people who appeared to be prosperous, but Delhi was a city of refugees. The suburbs surrounding Delhi were refugee colonies and they came in droves from the country side in trains with tickets occasionally and without tickets on regular basis
When I was a kid Gulzari Lal Nanda was a minister in the Central cabinet and was home minister and labour minister. But when was the minimum wages Act enacted and when was it implemented? It was enacted in 1948 before I was born and this made it possible to legally pay me Rs. 400 per month in Delhi and make me a wage slave. Gulzari Lal Nanda was a textile mill labourer in Ahmedabad before independence and later he was in the Central cabinet constitutional slavery after the British left or were thrown out. But the pretenders were thinking that they had created a state where people will live with dignity. Most of the people who I was familiar with in Delhi were peons or sweepers. Occasionally walking in the upper class colonies I will find people who appeared to be prosperous, but Delhi was a city of refugees. The suburbs surrounding Delhi were refugee colonies and they came in droves from the country side in trains with tickets occasionally and without tickets on regular basis
India was looted by the thugs from Mongolia to Portugal for 1000 years, enslaved and our ancestors were sold as slaves from Fiji to Guyana, Gaudulope, by these invaders. We fought back but again the chains became stronger and the loot continued till 1947 and Indian laws were mostly framed by the British and the personal laws of various religions were applied without deliberation or discussion. so we were completely subjugated but many Indian historians wrote history praising these invaders and this history was taught in schools and colleges to perpetuate the mediaeval slavery in a new garb.
As each day passed I got more accepted in the new environment and I tried my level best to avoid controversy and float unnoticed in the crowd, occasionally feeling depressed but mostly content with my predicament. I wrote more tests and attended many more interviews.
Cover: Wilson Sarada Anand
From Palakkad, Worked as Regional Manager, State Bank of Travancore, Vice President, Times Bank Ltd.
