International Political Will

If you live in Mumbai long enough, your brain files away the daily images and patterns emerge. Sights that at first seemed strange or out-of-place begin to fade and appear mundane. Normal.

Events that would normally be the subject of much conversation are forgotten in minutes, and exceptional people become everyday faces. What was once exotic is now common. But that doesn’t mean it is understood. The stories behind these images and people are still a mystery. Often ones I am not brave enough to uncover.

The fruit-wallah on the dusty corner sits in the shade of his tarp, batting flies from his ripe, black plums and green bananas. He is there everyday, rain or shine, holiday or not, early and late. He chats with the rickshaw drivers who are waiting for a fare.

The elephant-beggar roams the streets and offers a blessing with the touch of his trunk on your head in return for a few rupees. His mahout paints the elephant’s head and ears with bright designs in powder and chalk.

Semi-trucks rumble down the roads, always covered with extravagant designs and lettering: the words GOODS CARRIER on the front and HORN OK PLEASE on the back. Paintings of lotus flowers, depictions of deities, and the Hindi swastika add more color to the vibrant city. Often the trucks are packed with people on their way to festivals. Men sit on top over the cab, driving a beat on their drum that keeps the boys in the back dancing and twirling.

The beggars roam the sidewalks and storefronts, tapping elbows with an outstretched and dirty hand. Young children are the most persistent; they are usually not alone, and often an infant in a cloth sling knows how to hold out their hand before learning to walk.

Crazy-lady sits in the median at a busy intersection. Her hair is a mangy mess of dreadlocks, dirt and lice. She doesn’t beg; she doesn’t pester. She simply chats animatedly to no one.

Parking enforcement trawls the streets looking for a misplaced motorcycle or a double-parked Maruti. Several barefooted Indians ride on the edge of a small flatbed truck with a wench on the back. In only a few seconds, the truck stops, four young men jump off the back, pick up a motorcycle by hand and dump it on the bed. The truck pulls away, leaving one behind to scratch out a note in chalk on the pavement for the unlucky owner.

Underneath the freeway overpass is the impound lot where lines of frustrated drivers stand at the window waiting to bail out their vehicle. How much does it cost to get your motorcycle back? Have the owners forgotten that their source of transportation sits gathering dust just a few blocks from where they left it?

This is where my understanding drifts. Everything I see was, at first, a new sight. I absorbed everything with the curiosity that only a foreign visitor can have. But soon, these things became normal. And all I am left with is unanswered questions.

How many children does the fruit-wallah have? Does he help his children each night with their homework?

Where does the mahout take the elephant at the end of the day? Is there some small home in my neighborhood with an elephant sprawled outside on the ground every night?

Why do semi-trucks command such decoration? What kinds of GOODS does the truck typically carry? Who decides who gets to play the drums in front?

Do the beggar children go to school? What can one learn with little food, no roof, and any spare time spent on a street corner asking for spare change? Was crazy-lady already crazy before she found herself on the street, or was it the hard life of poverty that drove her mad?

Last Saturday I pass by a scene that stands out and cannot be forgotten. It involves the actors I have grown accustomed to seeing, but is out-of-place, even for Mumbai.

A typical brightly-painted truck idles on the side of the road. Crazy-lady and several other beggars sitting in the back of the truck catch my eye. A lone policeman casually stands by. Two men in civilian clothes are milling about the sidewalk. One of them points to a young boy, a beggar, who carries a baby in a sling around his neck.

The boy, perhaps only 9 or 10 years old, tries to get away but the two men grab him. He refuses to get in, and the men hoist him up with little regard for the infant around his neck. The boy cries in fright and struggles, but with an empty stomach and a baby in his arms, he can’t put up much of a fight.

I glance at crazy-lady, who is observing the scene from her seat in the back of the truck. She is calm – eerily unperturbed. It appears she is fully aware of what is going on, as if she’s been there before.

Mumbaikars speak of the “Beggar Mafia” that runs the panhandling scheme. Beggars are recruited and forced to turn over a cut of their daily take. Babies are rented out by desperate families in return for a percentage. Urban legends in Mumbai tell of raids into the slum, where the mafia kidnaps the poor and hauls them off to other parts of the city to earn a few rupees in what amounts to bonded labor. Stories about limbs being purposefully hacked off to generate more sympathy force you to look twice at the amputees that line the sidewalks.

Who is collecting these street-dwellers in the back of their truck? Where were they taking them?

I’d like to think that they were taking them to a shelter, where a bath and a meal awaits. More likely, they were being escorted out of the city limits, where they could be dumped on the side of the road. Out of sight, out of mind.

But there is an even darker answer. One that my mind cannot fathom. One I do not want to consider.

It has been a few days, and crazy-lady has not returned. I ask Indians about the incident, and they only speak in conspiratorial tones about the rumors of kidnapping, amputation, and bonded labor. No one can give me an answer.

And as I walk through the impound lot on my way to work, I wonder if there is an empty field outside of the city, where a group of beggars sits waiting for a family member to come rescue them.

Or if they will gather dust and be forgotten.

Tags: India, mafia, India, children, beggars

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