Where Do We Go Now?
Ravi Yadhav and his family of four had no desire to leave the slum colony on the outskirts of Sarita Vihar in New Delhi. Only an open sewer overflowing with rubbish separated their cluster of mud houses and bullock cows from Sarita Vihar’s gleaming skyscrapers and brand-new apartment towers that stood like fists raised triumphantly towards the Gods. The smell of the slum — of urine, the stench from the open sewer, old grease, and burning cow dung sometimes so clogged his nostrils that the naked longing to feel again the fresh scent wafting from the golden fields of wheat in his village made his stomach clench.
But being in Delhi meant employment. it meant having two meals of roti, daal, potato sabzi, sometimes even meat if Mohan Sir was happy with the number of bricks he had loaded on his bent back and emptied on to the construction lot, giving him an extra tip of two rupees. Being in Delhi meant his kids could have milk with their chai which they had never been able to afford in the village.
There were no jobs in the village, neither for him nor his wife who now swept the floors and cleaned the toilets in the apartment homes, they could see in the hazy light from the kerosene lamp they lit at night. Farming in the village was still at the mercy of the fickle seasons, and besides Baba had sold off their one plot of land to the village Zamindar years ago, to pay for Ravi’s sister’s dowry. No, here, they had food, and his sons could attend the Ganga Charitable School for the children of migrant workers like him. With those new computers installed in the school, maybe someday they could have a job that did not leave a man with a permanent limp, and a stunted back. Move out of the hut into a house with brick walls.
Chewing on a piece of grass, Ravi reflects on how much things have changed in the last four months. After Indian prime minister, Narender Modi extended a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus, they had to evacuate the slum. Return to your homes, your villages, they were told. But, how? With the construction company shut down, they had no money for the long train and bus ride home.
Ravi exhales deeply. His younger son is foraging for food among the banana peels, empty plastic water bottles, and curling wrappers of energy bars in the mound of litter that stands tall as a mountain under the bridge, along the Yamuna river. The river resembles a sewer, and the bank is strewn with trash.
“ I found a packet of half-eaten Parle-G biscuits, Baba,” his son will tell him later as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “But I had to fight off a fat rat, and a snarling dog to get to it!”
Ravi’s sons are unwashed and have not eaten in three days. They have been living in this squalor with their neighbors, hoping the government will move them into a shelter. The social worker who came yesterday said there had been media outrage over their living conditions. “Help is coming,” she said, as the cameraman accompanying her took a video of his older son, his tattered shirt falling off his skinny, hangar-like shoulders. Somebody — probably his wife — has dabbed a pinch of turmeric on his bruised knees. His bare feet were covered with dust, and his sad eyes watched hungrily the woman talking with her mouth open, and her wad of gum exposed.
Ravi folds his listless palms together and begins to pray.
