Struggle & comfort

They were a group of six waiting for Puja organisers to approach them at Sealdah station on the eve of the five-day annual extravaganza. Calcutta, for them, is a dream destination.

This year, the journey to Calcutta has been doubly important for them, as their homes were washed away by a man-made flood in their East Midnapore village near Kanthi (Contai). The man-made flood — as water was suddenly released from a dam that wiped out several villages from the earth — struck them twice, once in late June and another in August. They tried to build new homes in high places, but their efforts were all in vain. Their primary source of livelihood — agriculture — was no longer sustainable with cultivable land was lost in the flood. So were the foodgrain stored in granaries.

In the weeks before Puja when we were busy swiping cards at swanky malls, they spent the nights in tents put up by voluntary organisations and NGOs. “The government hardly took care of us. Had there not been the missions, we would die of hunger,” says Sadhan, with tears almost rolling down the cheeks. What could you tell them on that Saturday afternoon (October 4) — the last weekend for Puja shopping? When three youngsters sporting Reebok T-shirts and Nike sneakers approached them to hire for the five days, the villagers told the city brags that they can’t do it less than Rs 12,000. Obviously, the youth — probably representing a club — turned down the demand of the group of six — who had only arrived that Mahapanchami morning from Kanthi. They could not afford tickets to sit inside the bus, so they took the painstaking six-hour journey from their village to the City of Joy travelling rooftop amid drizzling. Some sheets of polythene could only save them, their belongings —which are in fact their seasonal source of income —from the smart shower.

Well, i do not organise a Puja and could not help the hapless six. But talking to them when it was raining outside Sealdah station was a revelation to me: we crib about our work even sitting in the comfort of AC; we remain eternally dissatisfied with our CTC; we don’t like the design of our shirts and trousers even at Pantaloons. What do we want? We have homes that were not obliterated from the city; we have jobs that are not threatened during the rains every year; we have chelo kebabs waiting for us that is not as simple as khichdi at relief camps ... we have everything they don’t have. Is it the Marxist concept of “haves” and “have nots”? Probably yes.

Still they manage to make us happy with the unique rhythm they create with dhaaks. They are the dhaakis who never come to the fore. How many times have we asked the name of a dhaaki at a Puja pandal? We note down the name of the sculptor or the interior decorator or the person in charge of theme-based illumination outside the pandals. We easily forget them after Dashami and they again make their return journey back home, probably to remote villages in Kanthi or Murshidabad or Burdwan even when we know a Durga Puja would remain incomplete without them!
©Supratim Pal