A Dwarf in My Own Eyes
Her name was Dulari but she was a Bilaspuri
(hailing from Bilaspur- an area of very poor tribal people in the state of
Chhattisgarh who migrate to richer states for six months from October to April every year to work as house construction labourers);
and a Dulari hailing from Bilaspur does not remain a dulari. Dulari literally means a woman that is
loved by all, but if she is a Bilaspuri, then her mother, father, brother, sister,
husband, son, daughter, friends, etc. none have any time to express their love towards
her. Immediately after getting up in the mornings they become busy working with
bricks, mortar, sand, cement and steel and continue like machines till dusk. Thereafter
the women and girls cook food and eat only after feeding the men folk. By this
time their body and soul both get so tired that no energy or inclination is
left for giving or receiving love.
Dulari was one
of those twenty Bilaspuris whom the labour-contractor had brought from Bilaspur
for working as labourer in house construction work and had put them at the site
of my house under construction- but Dulari was special among them. Among those
twenty Bilaspuris there were 10 men, 5 women, 4 children and Dulari. If you
have ever got a house constructed then you would be knowing that Bilaspuris are
not ordinary human beings, they are robot-beings. They dig the ground like
robots, make mortar like robots, carry bricks like robots, pull ground-water by
hand-pumps like robots, eat like robots and during work speak only when it is
essential for their work. Like Arjun they remain focused on their work alone. They
can be seen smiling or sulking only when something connected with their work
creates such a situation. Like robots they never cry; their eyes remain full of
such abject helplessness that no other emotion ever becomes visible in them.
And then, when have we learnt to speak and interact with these robots as human beings?
And why should we spoil our mouth’s
taste by peeping into the sub-human life of these robots? Like other Bilaspuris
Dulari also never spoke or smiled until it became unavoidable,
but
there was something in her big black eyes which expressed everything without
her tongue uttering a word. The expression of permanent helplessness had not
yet entered her eyes. In her expressive eyes calmness of lake
Mansarovar, turbulence of Atlantic ocean, coolness of snow-clad Himalayan peaks and
alertness of a doe’s eyes could be seen frequently.
None of us knew among those twenty Bilaspuris who
was whose grandpa-grandson, wife-husband, father-son, uncle-nephew,
brother-sister, friend-foe, etc. Even the contractor who had brought them had
not bothered to go into such ‘unnecessary’ details. Twenty robots were needed
for the house construction which the contractor had brought from Bilaspur.
However, everybody had soon come to know that the name of the one with piercing
looks was Dulari and she was the wife of one named Lokus among those twenty
robot-beings. This fact of her marriage had become public so soon because of
the bulge of her stomach on otherwise a slim and very shapely body. I had often noticed the contractor gazing at
the lifted breasts of the women climbing the stairs with bricks or mortar as
head-load and he was the one who had told me about Dulari being the wife of
Lokus and being pregnant.
One day out of curiosity I had asked the
contractor about the rate at which he had brought these Bilaspuris. The
contractor had replied that the grown ups were at the rate of Rs. seventy (less
than two dollars) a day and the children were at the rate of Rs. forty a day.
Then in a conspiratorial tone he had added,
“Although Dulari is incapable of lifting heavy
loads, yet I pay her Rs. seventy a day.”
For
such a hard work this rate had appeared to me to be too low and I had told the
contractor, “You have brought them too cheap.” The contractor had replied with
a smile,
“In the dry region of
Bilaspur hardly anything grows and moreover this is a drought year. If we don’t
provide employment to them, they will starve………………..”
The contractor was
saying all this with pride of a cunning tradesman, but I was feeling sorry at
the plight of these hapless labourers. As the contractor’s blurting of his
exploits became intolerable, I interjected,
“But is it
possible to even feed the family properly at this rate?”
I was unaware that Dulari was working quite
close to us and was listening to our conversation. Suddenly I looked back and
found her looking straight at my eyes as if she was trying to fathom my heart
and read that my words had any real sympathy for them or were mere impotent fulminations.
I felt that my persona had become an open book before her and in that she had
read that my words were hollow and there was no ability or irrepressible desire
in them to do something for the Bilaspuris. Then Dulari turned her eyes off me
and restarted quietly preparing mortar as if nothing had happened in between,
but I felt that in the short duration of those moments Dulari had made me a
dwarf in my own eyes.
In order to escape
the piercing looks of Dulari I did not go to the construction site for the next
two days. On the third morning when I gathered courage to go there, I found
that no labour had come to work. The contractor informed me,
“Today the labour
will come two hours late as they have gone for the cremation of Dulari’s still
born baby. Yesterday while climbing the
staircase, she had got a jerk in her stomach and had aborted during the night.”
On hearing this I got so upset that I left the
site immediately and did not come for the next seven days. After a week when I reached the site, I was
surprised to see that Dulari was as usual mixing cement with sand to prepare
mortar. On seeing me she only momentarily raised her eyebrows and then
immediately became engrossed in preparing the mortar. I knew that in her heart
a storm of sorrow was blowing but there was no trace of tears in her eyes.
Despite a strong desire to express my condolences I could not speak a word to
her. Instead, I took the contractor aside and asked him,
“After the abortion
why has she come to work so soon?” The contractor looked at me askance and said,
“Then what will she eat? She has
also to repay Rs. One hundred which her husband had taken as advance from me to
meet the expenses of cremation of the stillborn baby.”
By the end of the month of February the
structure of the house had been raised and the walls had been plastered. Now the
plumber and the carpenter had started working on it. One day the contractor had
not come. Sitting on a rickety chair I was looking into the book of accounts,
when Lokus came to me and told hesitatingly,
“Sahab! The contractor
has not given last month’s wages to any of us. He was saying that you have not
yet made payment to him for the work done last month.”
I was surprised to hear
that because I had made full payment to the contractor for the work done and he
had never complained about it. On my assurance that I had already made up-to-date
payment to the contractor, Lokus’s face turned yellow as if the blood had been
drained out of it. On regaining composure and after gathering some courage, he
spoke,
“Sahab,
then I think we are being duped in the same way as a contractor had done with
us in Delhi two
years back. Since every year we go back home in the month of April, he had
started delaying payments since the month of February. And when we had reached
the state of starvation, we had left for our homes without receiving payments.”
Then after a pause Lokus added beseechingly,
“Sahab! Kindly help us
to get our dues.”
I got furious at the contractor and
straightway proceeded to his house and enquired about the reason for non-payment
of wages to Bilaspuris. The contractor casually replied,
“I
shall pay. What is the hurry?”
This cavalier
attitude further infuriated me. I came back to the construction site and
started thinking to do something against the contractor. Lokus’s show of
courage to speak against the contractor had enthused me to do something for the
Bilaspuris- particularly because Lokus was husband of Dulari whose looks had
once dwarfed me in my own estimation. I wrote a complaint addressed to police
against the contractor and got it signed by all the Bilaspuris. Then I sent a
message to the contractor that if the payment to the Bilaspuris was not made by
that evening, I shall get the complaint lodged at the police station and even
if Bilaspuris leave for their distant homes, I myself shall give evidence
against the contractor. Next day on my way to the construction site I was in a
great dilemma that if the contractor had not paid the wages, then the
Bilaspuris would soon leave for their homes and then shall I really fight the
long drawn and often fruitless case against the contractor. But as soon as I
reached the site, I found Dulari staring at me and I don’t know how her eyes
convincingly conveyed to me that their payment had been made. I felt that I was
not so dwarf as I had thought myself to be; and the comprehension that Dulari’s
eyes were also conveying the same message elevated my spirit immensely.
But this feeling of self-esteem could
not last long because after a few days only when I reached the construction
site I did not find Dulari and Lokus there. When I asked the contractor about
them, he casually replied,
“Since the time of miscarriage
Dulari had started shirking the work, therefore I have fired her and Lokus.”
This reply hardly convinced
me because I had never found Dulari shirking her work- not even during those moments when with the piercing
looks of her big eyes she used to decipher truth and falsehood, sin and sacredness,
ill-will and goodness, selfishness and altruism in other person’s heart. As
nobody came with any other explanation or complaint, I kept quiet at that
moment; but within a few days I could know through gossip that one day when
Dulari was working alone in the bathroom, the contractor had made an attempt to
violate her modesty. For fear of losing her honour in the society she had not
complained to anybody but along with her husband had left the work here.
One day when I was going to the market
to buy some paint, I saw Dulari working by the side of the road under repair.
She raised her eyebrows and her eyes met mine. She kept on looking at me for a
few moments without a wink. In those eyes I saw that she was clearly seeing
that despite my desire to avenge her dishonour, I had neither the wisdom, nor
ability, nor courage to do so. I got a guilt feeling that I was not only
incapable of avenging the injustice done to her but was also indirectly a party
to it.
Again I started
looking like a dwarf in my own eyes.
