We were sitting in a café when a friend casually remarked to me: “I think India doesn't have horrendous poverty anymore.” This naïve statement rendered me speechless. Then I looked around and realised how the poor are kept from the vision of urban India.
Gladiator spectacles were once used to distract the citizens of Rome from the inadequacies of the government. In “modern” India, is it the glamour of Bollywood and cricket that shades the reality? Our yesteryear movies such as Mother India (1957) and Coolie (1983) focussed on poor protagonists and exemplified the struggles of a farmer or a common man. Now there are no poor people in our movies — not in supporting characters, not even in the background. The hero is almost always a multimillionaire, who switches countries at a blink of an eye and the heroine always wears designer clothes. Blockbusters such as Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), precisely establish the fact.
The poor are fighting a losing battle for space in the English dailies; beset with advertisements of super luxury villas and cheap(er) air tickets to Singapore.
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How true is this story of rising India? Has poverty eradication been as rapid in reality as in our movies?
While I was thinking about this question, I noticed a cobbler right below a magnificent high-rise at Connaught Place in Delhi. I never gave him much thought except now when I realised that he has been occupying the same spot under a tree beside a busy office complex for many years. He agreed to an interview on condition that he would continue mending shoes as we spoke. He respectfully welcomed me to his stall and I found a place on the ground next to his official chair — a torn red rug.
He looked frail in a loose cream shirt and faded, worn out, trousers. He kept his head down, mending a shoe, raising it only occasionally to either answer greetings from the hawkers around him or to my questions. This profession came as an apparent choice to him since his father too, was a cobbler. “I used to come here to help my father when I was young. We used to sit right here.” So does he have the same dream for his children? “I have put all my three children in a government school at Seelampur. I can't say about their future; they have to decide.”
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I had to put aside my hesitation to bring the conversation to his earnings. “I make about Rs. 200 on a good day,” he said, without exhibiting any trace of awkwardness. To my surprise, he did not follow this statement with rhetoric about rising prices. How could he be content with making just Rs.200 a day? How does he buy new clothes and new toys for his kids? “I buy them gifts on Diwali, if I have money.” It was easy to get envious of his contentment; I began to wonder if he is harbouring any anger against the rich who surround him on this busy street. “There is nothing to be angry about. There are people who are richer than these rich people too,” he reverted, uncontrived.
Owning a pucca house at Seelampur takes away his right to claim the Below-Poverty-Line (BPL) card which could give him access to cheap rations. Given the soaring prices, how is he able to save for his children? “I could save earlier but not now. What little I had, I spent it on my father's treatment. He died two years ago, since then I have been trying to save up again for making shoes. I used to make shoes by hand and sell them right here but I have no money to do that anymore,” he said, pointing to his worn out chappals. But, surprisingly, he doesn't believe in holding big expectations from his children. “All that is a matter of fate. I want to do my duty and leave the rest to god.”
That's when I realised that it was his faith in destiny and his uncomplaining acceptance of poverty that kept him going. I felt I had my answers now.
“ Bhaiya - Your name?” I enquired as I dusted myself after getting up.
“Suresh,” he responded, continuously chopping the extra leather off a shoe sole.
“Suresh… aage ? last name?” I asked, tapping my pen to my notebook.
“It's Suresh only. Actually, Suresh Kumar but everybody calls me Suresh.” I left him alone with the uneasiness he tried to hide by burying himself in his work.
David Dhawan doesn't plan to make Cobbler number 1 anytime soon and hence it's time we took on the onus to notice, not just the Mercedes at the traffic signal, but also the helpless leprosy patient banging the car window or an abandoned granny on the roadside.
(The writer's email ID is deepti310@yahoo.com)