Food for thought!

Shravan doesn't like the cold winter mornings much. Not that he has a special liking for any season: he finds them all empty; he finds the frigid sunrises particularly exasperating. It requires him to wake up a bit earlier than usual to brew some hot tea for his "masters", ensconced in the warmth of blankets, desiring to wake up to a cup of the delectable liquid. The 12 year old, working in a hostel mess for the past three excruciatingly long years, has got quite used to the chore. Such abject has been his acceptance of the retribution that he no longer seeks a normal childhood: a childhood we cherish in our memories for the loving indemnity bestowed on upon us. While the more fortunate of us have the luxury of malingering to avoid school on such dreary mornings, school itself is a luxury to the 57 young mess workers serving their sentence in the nine hostels of the Institute of Technology, Benares Hindu University. Their crime is poverty.

Born in penniless families destroyed by some social stigma, each of these lads, aged between eight and sixteen, has a poignant tale to recollect. Rahul, a sixteen year old, banished by his step-mother after the "accidental" death of his mother, says,” Though I don’t have any qualms against destiny, at least not anymore, but I still do wonder what it feels like to ask for something from one’s parents and to get that. Destiny didn’t even let me hear a ‘no’ ".

Acute necessity at home abetted their move into Varanasi from the nearby villages. On stepping inside the holy abode of Lord Shiva, the temple of learning was their obvious choice for shelter. The university, being in constant requirement for hands to cater to the needs of the bustling and burgeoning student community, employs scores of such youth who are on the lookout for some money to send home and bail-out their failing families. The money that they send, in many cases, is what sustains their families. Not only is this a responsibility that they have had to shoulder at a tender age, but it also is a responsibility that is fulfilled only by their toiling in some extremely taxing conditions.

A normal day, as Satyendra, a 9 year old, recounts, involves waking up as early as five in the morning and getting to work immediately to assist in preparing breakfast for the hostel inmates. Following the breakfast serving, which continues up to 10am (11am in some hostels), the lads are required to help in the preparation of lunch. Lunch serving starts at 12noon and continues in numerous batches for the next three hours. Free of the exigencies(dish washing and cleaning the tables after each batch eats) by around 4 pm, the lads literally collapse for a well earned rest, only to be awakened at 5pm to do the customary cooking utensils washing and serving the evening snack to the inmates. The same tiring banality has to be repeated for dinner, which starts at 8pm, and finishes around 10pm (unless some venerable inmate arrives late after booze). The final service of the day is the distribution of hot milk, served at ten-thirty in the night. Actually this isn’t exactly the last service, cleaning of the mess before going to sleep is. Add to this the hourly “personalized” services, the daily purchasing and the weekly venture of acquiring gas-cylinder (for which one has to report at the counter at 2am!),and what you have is rigorous torture that is as body-breaking as it is hope-shattering.

In fact, the boys don’t even have the luxury of hoping for a brighter future, like the rest of us have. Only few amongst the present bunch has had any formal education beyond std.5. Only one has attended school after matriculation! Stripped of the resources, time and energy to attend any formal schooling, the boys have to set their sights at taking up petty jobs. This only augments their hand to mouth existence. After all they aren’t the hapless elves described with such pathos in the Harry Potter books: they are fine, industrious human beings having equal rights to dream, even if we cynically dispose that as chasing rainbows in the sky. Education is undoubtedly the greatest empowerment that we could give to these young boys: education that these boys can apply , not just some shallow school certificates that only suffice the more privileged.

A notable effort in this direction has been made by a truly remarkable lady with assiduous gusto, wife of prof. A.K.Mukherjee of app.chem deptt., lovingly called as ‘mousi’. Her undaunted endeavours to teach these boys has been a revelation . She personally conducts daily classes for the mess workers at 3pm. Besides gaining a basic understanding of maths and languages, the boys have developed a deep affection for her, owing to her loving demeanour. Madhusudan, a seven year old says it all:”she is the only one here, who cares for me ”. But even this glimmer of hope is flickering due to the unwillingness of the mess heads(referred to as the ‘maharajas’) to let the boys attend these classes. They deem it as a waste of time and view these classes with the apprehension that they may one day take away their cheap labour. So only a few fortunate are able to avail of this privilege.

Having gained the basics, what remains elusive for these boys, is vocational training .A carefully thought out syllabus needs to be prepared, taking into account the types of industries that Varanasi houses. The men of voyeur ,amongst the boys who have come here to become engineers, can become the instructors and managers of this project. Only this , as prof.Pankaj Chandra,director of IIM Bangalore, elucidated in his brilliant address on 18jan in ITBHU, is inclusive growth for our country.

Though vocational training is as difficult to arrange as attractive it sounds; it might be the only light at the tunnel for these friends of ours. At the moment, they clamour for our help .But the eloquence of their silent plea is palpable only to those who can read it in their forlorn eyes.

To quote Oscar Wilde:” Who,being loved, is poor?”

Sudipta Mukherjee