Alone amidst the crowd
He sat there on the sidewalk tired,
the weariness clearly seen in his eyes, dazed and seemingly oblivious to his
surroundings he sat lost in thought. His trousers were dirty not having seen
water and detergent for some time, hair unkempt with shades of beard sticking
out from his famished face proof enough that he was underfed and hadn’t shaved
in a while. His dreams unfolding before him, the same dreams that had brought
him to this Kingdom.
The lure of foreign shores and the promised riches at the
end of it was probably why he left his familiar confines in the village to
venture out into the big city in search of redemption, from life’s travails, from
the gross injustice of being poor and having to feed a large family. Greener
pastures awaited him; he had seen others in his village, friends striking it
rich in the ‘Promised Land’. Now he decided that he would have to give it his
best shot, in many ways his last shot in spite of having to pawn ancestral land
to find his way here.
The ride to this beautiful
kingdom was a dream, never had he seen an aircraft, leave alone travelling in
one. The airport was not familiar too, but having followed the others his herd
mentality kicked in and he reached the aircraft eager to embark on his maiden
trip, a trip that he did not know might be the only one he makes in this world,
for soon as he landed he was herded with the others into an open truck and
shifted to his camp what would be his abode for eternity.
After the initials
days the truth dug in, this was no promised land, the wages were as low as he received
back home, and his boss though from his home country shoved him around to prove
his importance and carry favour with his own superiors. When the initial
payment arrived he did his calculations and found out that it would take a
couple of years to pay off his village money lender. Meanwhile the family
started demanding their pound of the flesh, after all wasn’t he supposed to
fend for them, hadn’t they expected a better life once he was gone to foreign
shores.
The tug of war between sending enough money to care for his family and
paying off his debts started getting messy and out of hand, he knew he was
caught in a vicious circle, trying to jump over his shadow, no way could he
stave off the marauding and ever persistent people back home unless he jumped
‘bail’. Others in his place had done so, some had made it to the shore others
had drowned, for him it was the only way out, so one fine day he jumped and has
ever since been striving to make both ends meet even while having to keep a
watchful eye on the keepers of the law.
Now after years of getting drenched in
his sweat from the sweltering heat, after years of sleeping without a blanket to
cover him during the cold nights, after having to live like a vagabond, he has
lost all hopes of retrieving his lost position and pride. He was getting sucked
more deeply into the quagmire. Yes, the young man who once carried dreams in
his eyes now reflects on the good old days and cries during the night, unable
to even recollect the faces of his dear ones.
He doesn’t care for the
explosives going off around him nor is he afraid to dip his hand into the trash
bins like an eager child willing to draw a lot. He is no more afraid of the
law, he does not worry about spending time in jail, and he has turned immune to
all forms of mental torture. Willing to be led in any direction, not having a
mind of his own, without a care in the world, he looks forlorn in his thoughts
merely able to recollect some and not thinking of tomorrow.
He looks at the
crowd of people passing him in cars, pickups, in vans, in buses or on foot, a
vast sea of humanity rushing against the odds to make a living, most of them
have been fortunate to keep their sanity. He was lost; the tears had dried up
and even his own shadow startled him. The ignominy of a person lost in the
crowd –He was now alone amidst the crowd.
(This article is a tribute to the
Indian labourer working under adverse circumstances in faraway places in the
Middle East like Bahrain).
