THE LETTERS TO RAFAEL

 

“The living conditions of the poor must be improved,

if we really want to save our environment.”

Wangari Maathai

 

We would call her Lilly bai. She lived on rent in our neighborhood in my native village in Mangalore. Once in a month or two, she would request me to write a letter to her younger brother, who worked in Bombay (before it became Mumbai)… She would dictate, I would write. Outside the inland letter, the address would be:

Rafael D’Souza/Liftman, Sonera* Building, Near Masjid Bunder, Bombay – 400 009.

Yes, my service was not only limited to write letters to Lilly bai’s brother, but also to read out to her his replies. This continued till I myself migrated to Bombay to find a better living condition.

I still remember my visit to Lilly bai’s brother… She had so lovingly packed a bottle of homemade shredded-mango pickle for her brother. I knew the address byheart: Sonera Building, Near Masjid Bunder, Bombay 400 009… All that I had to ask there for was: ‘Rafael D’Souza, the Liftman’…

Rafael lived alone. Below the staircase on the ground floor… An iron trunk carried his clothes… A mattress and a pillow to sleep… A kerosene stove to cook his meal. That afternoon, he had cooked a special meal (chicken curry and pav) for two of us… We sat there and relished the kingly meal!

This man, Rafael, with whatever little he earned, would regularly send money orders to his elder sister to raise her family back in the village…

That’s my first exposer to a migrant’s life away from my village. I had my own younger brothers and parents, to whom, I would send regular money orders for years… Till the time, our living conditions improved.

Why am I remembering this old story, today?

My younger brother Rony has been living with his family very close to the building that was engulfed in the tragic blaze in Kuwait. Yesterday, my aunt (Mom’s younger sister, Cecilia, who had lived there for sixteen years till Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. They had to flee Kuwait and, somehow, couldn’t go back.) called me up to take from me Rony’s phone number… She wanted to check if all was okay.

All was okay for my younger brother and his family, mercifully. But, my thoughts go for every migrant worker – be it in any part of the world, or in our own country… Living as a migrant worker is, often, a heartbreaking story!

In one of the sessions, during our just-concluded summer programme (on Personality Development), a young boy, who hailed from a well-fed/well-read family was sharing his experience with an Exchange Programme he had embarked upon while in school. He had been to France to live/stay with a French family and the young boy from the French family had come to our boy’s place (here in Mumbai) to live/stay. Our young man sincerely (and proudly) shared the positive side of such a programme. In the same session, there were a couple of young kids who lived in slum areas… whose mothers worked as housemaids and fathers as watchmen, chaiwalas or istriwalas. I posed this question: “Shall we initiate an Exchange Programme here… How about you guys living/staying for two weeks or so in each other’s houses and get a first-hand experience of what it is like?”

I never got a response… I never expected it, anyway!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic’s: Pixabay

Video:Surf excel