An ordinary man

Everyone has a story to tell. And people in the unlikeliest of situations display an understanding of the world and a common sense that often jolts the jaded. As it did me, as I journeyed from Pune to Mumbai by road, and out of ennui ended up talking to the driver.

Mahesh is from Jharkhand. He has lived in Mumbai for more than 25 years. He has a wife and three children back in his village. His daughters have just attained puberty and are getting close to 18. He knows that the village will expect them to get married and he is on the lookout. His son is in school.

Leaving his family in Jharkhand was a matter of choice. He says he does not want his family to live like dogs in a slum in Mumbai when they have a perfectly respectable existence in the village. He owns land. It is scattered over the village. Every year he goes home in June or November, to coincide with the rice sowing or harvesting time. He has one crop a year, totally rainfed. In the winter his wife plants root crops and some vegetables. Asked why he did not resort to borewells, he offers the sophisticated argument that it does not make sense to invest in a pumpset when the holdings are so scattered. Besides, he says, look at Punjab. All the groundwater is gone.

What about irrigation schemes?? A big canal project was launched by Indira Gandhi when she came back to power. Much fanfare, a big occasion. A few years later she was assasinated, and coincidentally, work just died down and stopped. Now even the mud has caved in and in concreted areas, soil has filled the canal.

The discussion leads to corruption. I ask him about Madhu Koda, the infamous former Chief Minister who has set Olympic records in stealing money. He observes sarcastically that Koda will lead a comfortable existence in hospitals and then will be set free. Koda was an independent with no support, no credentials, who was propped up by one party just to deny the other. And this is what happens when you put people without any credentials in positions of power, he says. What about the current government, I ask. He shrugs cynically. They are all the same, he says.

I ask about whether the creation of Jharkhand was a good idea. He was quite happy as a Bihari and now is happier as a Jharkhandi. In the last ten years every village has been electrified. There is a sense that the development machinery is moving. He has nothing good to say about the government of Chez Yadav. Nitish, he says is doing well.

He elaborates that Bihar and Jharkhand are truly blessed. One state has very rich soil and abundant water - if only the politicians stopped stealing money from the PWD the perennial problem of the Kosi overflowing its banks due to upstream dam openings can be solved, he says. The other is rich with forest cover and natural wealth. He says there is no logical reason for the tremendous poverty in these two states.

He learns that I am Tamil, and shares with me that he has driven clients to Tirupur, Coinmbatore, Madurai etc and spent a month there. He confesses Tamil is an alien language to him. I gently tell him that for many Tamils Hindi is as alien a language. He expresses wonder at why so many Tamils learn Hindi, and he displays awareness that in the past the issue of language nearly split the country. He wonders how we stay together as a nation. He tells of taking the Alleppey Express from Alleppey to Bokaro, the number of languages you encounter - Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Oriya, Chattisgarhi and finally the Jharkhand dialect. He speculates that perhaps the fact that we are a Hindu majority nation is the reason why. That, and British Rule I add. He agrees. He says after all they built all the railways that the ministers now exploit. He wanders on to the subject of our leaders just after Independence. He says that after spending so many years in jails, Nehru, Patel etc would have had no experience of government yet they managed to create this nation. He thinks they are great men. If only they had settled Kashmir as well we would not be in the situation we are in today, he says.

By now we are nearing Sion, and I see pictures of the Thakeray family and ask him the obvious question. He then educates me on the economics and politics of labour mobility. He tells me that the average Maharashtrian labourer has high expectations of wages which the local industry cannot bear. He tells me he has heard how China makes everything cheap and exports it, and he says if India has to do the same, work has to go to those who will bear the cheapest wages. Biharis and Jharkhandis will work happily for Rs 5000 a month, whereas the average local labourer will be unhappy. Construction work in Pune and elsewhere has stopped, he says, as labourers flee, and factories are closing. Who will this hurt most, he asks. Biharis will happily go the Tirupur to work in garment factories, he says, and the Tamils dont treat them badly...

I ask him about his son, what he wants him to do. His son is in a mission school run by Jesuits. He is a hostel resident, and the boy has ambitions. Mahesh says that the son will not come back to the land. To earn a living from agriculture means you need to do three crops a year, leave part of the land fallow to recover, invest in fertilisers and inputs, and have access to labour. This is difficult, he says. So when his son gets a job, he will sadly sell the land that has been in his family for generations. I suspect his ancestors got their first "pattas" after the Permanent Settlement.

He offers the sentiment that missionaries get a bad name for doing good work. They do try and convert people, but then where are the free schools run by Hindus, he asks. Religion cannot live on empty stomachs and empty minds, he says.

I sit back in silence as he navigates the tough traffic near Dharavi to get me back to my five star comfort, and ponder this whole exchange. Nothing remarkable has been said, no insights offered. Foreigner as I am now by choice, Indian as I am in my heart, I was quite profoundly struck by how very sane this absolute non-entity of a human being was. How rooted in his sense of self, his self-confidence in his world and in his abilities. Aware of the world and aware of its possibilities.

An ordinary man - ordinary, but a man nevertheless.