KAAVISH

The other day, I was running late for my lectures, again. After that two and a half hour phone call with Anwesha I hardly had the peace of mind or time to take a nap. Things hadn’t been working between us for a long time, the past night we decided to end everything up. Life seemed to have taken the rough road. It had just been two days since dad had returned back from Dubai and the house was already a mess. I hated him for everything. Though I hardly ever spoke to him in the minimum of time he was in India, everything just turned out ugly in his mere presence. As if this wasn’t enough, my project which I had been working on for the past three months did not even get selected for the semifinals. Life was a mess, and I did not know whom to blame for it.

Just then, I saw a sketch of a young boy in the local newspaper the man sitting opposite to me in the train was reading. It took me a while to recognize that that boy was Wasim. Wasim was one of the 5^th standard students I had taught in the NGO I was working with, as a part of my college project. The NGO taught children from the slum and unprivileged family backgrounds who couldn’t afford going to regular school. Wasim though wasn’t very good in his studies but would be very active in the class. I would often see him in the local trains, hanging out through the doors, trying to touch every other pole passing by and waving at me whenever he saw me.

“Wasim wouldn’t be coming today sir. He ran away from his house.” narrated one of the girls from Wasim’s class.

“Why?  What happened to him?”

“His father was sending him with some other man and he did not want to go with him, so he ran away. Nobody knows where he went!” replied the girl’s friend, immediately.

The group of children then told me that Wasim’s father was actually trying to sell him off to another man. His father was a drunkard and would often come home drunk in the night and beat his mother. I remember listening to them traumatized. It had almost been a year I last saw him.

My station had arrived. As I was trying to push my way to the exit of the local train, I could sense my phone vibrating. Getting out of the train, when I checked my phone, it was an unknown number.

 “Hello?” said a girl’s voice.

It took me just the word to recognize Anwesha. I cut the call immediately. She kept on calling for the next ten minutes and being completely irritated I finally picked up the call.

“Don’t you understand that I am not interested in talking to you? Did I not make myself clear enough last night? I don’t want to talk to you!” I was screaming at the top of my voice outside the herded college gate.

Before she could reply back anything I had already cut the call.

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Taking up BMM had, by far, given me two things- one, a nip of reality about me and the world around me, and two, a chance to explore the little I knew.

One of my fourth semester projects required us to make a short film on a social issue. After a good discussion, my group agreed down to the topic of ‘Prostitution and Human Trafficking’ as we thought that would be a bold and untouched issue.  With the help of one of our group member’s father, who was a DGP, we got the help to go and shoot in Kamathipura, one of the oldest red light areas of Mumbai. We were to interview a few sex workers about their life and how they got into this. After struggling hard for over two-three hours, one of the pimps finally allowed us to interview few of the prostitutes under him.

Sunita (36) was the first woman we interviewed. She originally belonged to UP and was into this business for the past 17 months.

“Prostitution is a part of my life now. I am neither ashamed of it, nor will I or can I run away from it now. It has given me the money to fill mine and my daughter’s stomach, when there was nobody.”

“I got married to my brother-in-law 3 years back, which was a year after my sister died. She left behind her daughter who is with me now; I take care of her like my own daughter. My husband was a drunkard and a bettor. He would come home drunk every night and beat me for no reasons. Being 6 months pregnant and also having my sister’s daughter with me, I had to find a way to feed them. So I started selling buttermilk without his knowledge in railway stations and bus stands. One day he caught me selling buttermilk, when I hadn’t noticed him. In the evening when he came back home he asked me for money for which I replied I didn’t have any. He hit me so hard that I had a miscarriage. This all continued for a few more days, when once he even burnt my legs with a hot iron rod, I decided I had to run away and am here today.” said Sunita wiping her tears.

Everyone in the group was shell-shocked after listening to her story. We couldn’t imagine the level of suffering one could undergo.

We were just wrapping up when I saw a boy passing by with a plastic bag full of alcohol. The boy was Wasim. It had now been one and a half years I had seen him, last I saw him was on the newspaper which read that he had killed his father who tried to kill his mother and ran away.

“Wasim! Wasim!” I shouted out loud.

He heard me and stopped, looking at me wide eyed without uttering an err.

“What has happened to you? What are you doing here? I read about you in a newspaper! And what are you carrying?” I was jabbering out questions with the speed thing were running in my mind, and he stood quietly with a straight face and wide eyes.

“Wasim! Wasim!” another man shouted at him from the first floor, to which he ran in response.

“Aye, how much time do you take to bring stuff from the nearby shop?” the man slapped him tight snatching away the bag of alcohols in his hand.

I was standing downstairs, watching all of that, completely blank.

“How do you know Wasim?” asked Sunita from behind.

“I used to teach him in the NGO I was working with for a college project. But wait I am not understanding anything! What is he doing here? I read in a newspaper that …”

“Yes, he stabbed his father and ran away. After that Ahmed bhai spotted him somewhere and brought him here as a help. The police also found him but because of Ahmed bhai, they left him here.” Interrupted Sunita.

That was too much of a debacle story I had heard for a day. I couldn’t just stop thinking about Sunita and Wasim.

Days had passed, but thoughts about Wasim and Sunita had stayed in my mind. Our project had not only won the first prize in our college but was also selected to be sent to the annual Short film competition, which featured short films from different institutes from all over India. I couldn’t measure the happiness and excitement I had for this competition. I wanted to go and share this with Sunita, and thank her, partially because this wouldn’t have been possible without her, and partially because I wanted to see if she, her daughter and Wasim were okay.

“She is infected with AIDS now, and is admitted in the local hospital; probably her last few days.” Said Ahmed under whom Sunita had been working.

“Which hospital is it?”

“Where is her daughter?”

“Where is Wasim?”

“How is he?”

“What do you think I don’t have any other work other than answering your questions? Just go away! A little bit of leniency and they will be dancing on your head” screamed Ahmed back at me and rushed me out.

I later got to know from another woman we had interviewed the other day that wasim was transferred to some other place now and it was him who was taking care of Sunita’s daughter. Ahmed already knew about Sunita’s illness but hadn’t told her until the last stage.

I just didn’t have the courage and guts to go and visit Sunita and just see her in such suffering. Where on one side I wanted to help Wasim, I could not.

Travelling back home I was only lost in thoughts. I remember being upset because I broke up with my girlfriend, where on the other hand one’s life partner doesn’t even give them a basic human respect and beats them to death; I remember grouching over how irritating and aggravating my father was in the shortest time he was with me, where another father tries to sell his child for money; I remember crying over how everything in my life was unsettled and complicated, where on the other side, the only reason people are called alive is because they are breathing. 

Sometimes questions life raises on others are the answers to the questions we raise on our lives. I learnt life could have been much worse for me. We, at times, start grumbling about situations not because it is that bad, but because we just want to pity ourselves. May be life will not always end things the way you wanted it to end, may be you always wouldn’t have a ‘happy ending’, may be you always wouldn’t get what you think you deserve, but you still will have a reason to move on in life.