A Household Lakshmi!

At her ripe age Lakshmi ought to have been in the comfort of her home, resting, cooking and taking loving care of her grandchildren. Lakshmi does have a home if it can be called that. She owes it to her late husband who migrated to the city during the 1971 war along with Lakshmi, a newly-wed couple, and struggled direly in the new environs for food and for a roof over them. She calls him lucky enough to finally come to own a one-room tenement in the sprawling slum thanks to the kindness of a local leader. Although the slum was unauthorized her husband was able to get an illegal electricity connection too, and till today it remains illegal, for Lakshmi cannot afford to acquire a proper electricity connection. Her husband worked as a hand rickshaw puller and her household was running well for the next few years during which their son was born.

Then tragedy struck: her husband succumbed to tuberculosis leaving her alone with her school-going son. In spite of her determination to continue to educate him, she was forced to let him learn and work in the construction industry. Her intelligent son soon became an adept construction worker, and again, her household was running well for a few years more. She got his son married to a good slum neighbor’s daughter and two boys were born in the next three years. Tragedy struck once again: her son, hardly into his forties, died in a building collapse, resting on Lakshmi now the sole responsibility of managing the household. Therefore, Lakshmi does have a home and does have grandchildren.

She protects her daughter-in-law fiercely: from the stares of the loose males in the neighborhood as she began going out to earn a little and run the household; she insists on educating her grandchildren come what may; and later, under the pressing circumstances she had to allow her daughter-in-law to start working as a maid, but only in few selected respectable families as her rag-picking riches were not enough to sustain her aspirations.

Lakshmi goes out on her job at least thrice daily—in the early morning hours, around noon time and in the late evenings. These Durga Puja days she has to work overtime, for the impacting footfalls of the millions of Puja hoppers and revellers leave a trail of items to be picked. She hates the littered overflowing parks and stadiums, the streets, the shop corners and backyards, and the garbage dumps; but she understands the potential for her in that ocean of filth.

The other day only Lakshmi achieved a prize catch: she collected so many intact undamaged water bottles that she was unable to carry those on her person. So she examined the additional dump under the street lamp and eventually discovered a large packed plastic bag which, she was sure, contained only dry torn items. She carefully loosened the knot on the bag and finally opening it poured all the items on the dump. Then she filled it with all her bottles neatly and completely, and went to the merchant hidden somewhere inside the sprawling slum, merrily.

Lakshmi wants to do so many things for the comfort of her two grandsons, but unable to accomplish anything significant. She gets very angry: ask the local leaders or anybody for that matter for any kind of help or favour that she needs urgently and they demand money in exchange. How could anybody demand money from someone who struggles even to manage the daily two meals? She cannot understand. In fact, Lakshmi is now tired of asking for favours, she’s fed up, and unwilling to seek help, instead, she undertakes the ‘do it yourself’ mission in full.

She doesn’t ever bother about the future. What concerns her is the present, only the present that, for her, is the greatest challenge, the greatest hurdle to overcome. She has to carry on with that. Carrying on the with present struggle to survive and live is her only future, her family’s future and her grandchildren’s future.