The Migrant Worker

                          

 "Donon ka ik hi rasta hai     

Donon jalti tapti sadak par            

Suraj ki garmi se pighalte

Nange paanv

Apne thhake kandhon par

Apni bhookh aur pyas ki gatthri lekar

Jaane kitni sadiyon se yun hi chalte hain" (Javed Akhtar)

                               

                                      "And both are seeing it                                        

Both on the hot burning road

Melting in the scorching sun

Barefoot

On their tired shoulders

Carrying their luggage of hunger and thirst

Don’t know for how many centuries

They have been walking like this" (Javed Akhtar)

 

The Covid19 lockdown was declared in the country on 24th March, 2020 leading to the massive mass migration of the migrant workers across the country walking back home thus evoking multitude of emotions. Well my post is not an analysis of the mass migration, the utter chaos and bad planning behind it. May be that is a topic for some other time.

 My post is on the similarity and contrasts that migrant workers have with each other and how their lives intersect & diverge in reality and figuratively. 

 Having seen the moving image of the mass migration and having closely worked in providing relief to many such workers, the closest imagery that comes to me as a similarity is a moving image of someone close to me, someone I know...

 

And that person is me...

 

While the migrant workers mentioned here are at a basic subsistence level, one may argue on how do I identify myself with them? While I may be better paid many times over as compared to the workers in question, the other criteria that defines them also defines me.

 Many may feel, at this point in time, that I am over romanticising the comparison and that it is taken out of proportion. Allow me to explain and then you may draw your conclusions as you feel fit.

 When I am comparing myself and millions of other middle class sons and daughters coming from smaller cities to work in larger cities for better employment opportunity, actually I am drawing up a context, situation and reality which is akin, if not as stark, to the migrant workers under mention.

 Millions of middle class youngsters like me set out to establish themselves in today's world through better education and training. However, when such an education is over and then they start looking for suitable opportunity closer home, such opportunity forever eludes them as it is simply not there. Having no other options, they take up jobs and career options in larger cities thereby subjecting themselves to the bondage of a life time away from their home and hearth.

 Living in small cubicles which are called living spaces in modern cities, they get used to their little windows & balconies giving them a piece of the universe - which is always silent, does not talk to them and has no answer for them... With parents left in the smaller cities, the middle class son & daughter lives a dual life as one part of their being is with their parents - worried sick if they are doing well, depending on goodwill & charity of friends / relatives when they fall ill / have to be hospitalised and forever dying of guilt of how they can be of no use to their parents when they need their children the most...

 They try hard to go back but as they progress in their career, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to go back as similar opportunity can never be created or are available in their home states. Grudgingly and reluctantly they continue to trudge along living a life,  which though is full of comfort and better amenities but forever missing the joy, fun and the familiar camaraderie of an era gone by...

 Such urban robots work their whole life paying for endless EMIs, bills and expenses hoping against hope that one day they will get a chance to go back...

 Rushing through the maze of life in the cities, they however pause, even if for a little while, when they smell the earthy smell of the moist earth after the first rain, a random smell of food wafting through the air or the fun of kids playing a 'competitive' game of cricket on the road... The imageries achingly reminding them of a time when they were alive, bustling with energy and looking forward to life with hope and aspirations in their eyes...

 Back home their parents are proud of them and would not stop showing off to their friends and relatives of the good job & life their children and grandchildren are leading... However, the parents are very careful to hide the sense of emptiness and hollowness which comes from the knowledge that their near and dear ones are not with them when they need them the most... The parents always encourage their children to do well in their life and march ahead in the competition but once in a while you will hear a silent whisper, almost like a fervent prayer to their creator, when they ask you this question over telephone while trying to sound casual " do you see any new openings in the state which may be suitable for you".... Hoping against hope that there is actually such openings which will ensure that their loved ones return home... 

 The longings, the fear, the insecurity and the sense of emptiness is the same in all types of migrant workers - be it the one walking back home or be it the one sitting in posh flats wishing that they could also go back home...

 Is there a way out of it...? Is there a solution which will magically restore the migrant workers back to their native place...? Is there an answer to the many prayers that parents across this country are making to atleast have their family around them in the last leg of their journey... ?

 I don’t know nor do I have the answer... Some of you may say that the answer lies in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial spirit of starting something back home... The answer to such suggestion is that many lack the entrepreneurial spirit as in the India of 70s, 80s & 90s (where the current generation of white collar migrant workers grew up in) had families which stressed on education and finding good jobs to sustain yourself. Such an approach has not bred the spirit of entrepreneurship and there is a very miniscule of people from this generation who actually go back and start something on their own - the local regulatory & economic conditions also not being conducive to such start-ups...

 So where does it leave the  migrant workers at... Well that leaves us at the cross road of emotions, longings and a sense of emptiness & hollowness in what could have been and what the imaginary possibilities were... Till such time that one formally retires from work and returns back to the cherished land to find out that over a period of time you are suddenly considered an outsider by virtue of staying out of the state for a long time...

 

Hence the migrant worker, sadly, will always be a migrant worker - in search of his identity in a city which considers him an alien and which he equally considers as a foreign place, never adopting each other, never comfortable with each other and never belonging to each other... '

 

So the spirit of the migrant worker floats around eternally unable to find a place which he can call home and missing the era long gone by where he belonged, mattered and cared for.... Continuously searching for it in the earthy smell of the moist earth after the first rain, random smell of food wafting through the air or  in the games kids play on the wayside...Reminding him of a time when he was alive, bustling with energy and looking forward to life with hope, aspirations and joy glistening in his eyes...