LORD, I FEEL LIKE GOING HOME

“Cloudy skies are rolling in
And not a friend around to help me
From all the places I have been
And I feel like going home”

-       From the song ‘Lord, I Feel Like Going Home’

Lyrics by Charlie Rich

I am very, very fond of Mark Knopfler’s and Tom Jones’s music. I can plug my ears and get lost in their music and songs for eternity… And, during these difficult times, that’s been one of the things I have been doing quite repeatedly. For last one week or so, I wanted to share in my blog an amazing stage performance together – a very rare and special - by these two legends. Somehow, I kept delaying it, even though I kept playing it many times during this week. Finally, today, I am unable to hold it back, any more… So, here it is… ‘Lord, I Feel Like Going Home’!

Ever since I learnt about the tragedy on the railway tracks in Aurangabad, I have been wanting to write something on it, but have not been. Sadness, sorrow, helplessness, compassion, anger, guilt, shame, unrest, then rest… a whole lot of internal upheaval. Suddenly, everything I wanted to say seemed so pale and hollow in front of this tragedy… Yes, as a mortal, my mind was, again and again, slipping back into the blame mode – Government apathy, your apathy, my apathy, our apathy… Then, the questions like these: “What can I do about it?” “Do I have an answer?” “Where is God?” “Where is the social conscience?” “Where is my conscience?” “How can I sleep” “How can I eat?” … Trust me, I have been going through it all, since last morning.

My dear friend, Ajith Nair, had articulated his feelings so movingly on his FB timeline, this morning, that I felt as though he had done it on my behalf, too. There is nothing he, me or you could have done to prevent this tragedy. Perhaps, the authorities could have… But, then, this is not the time to blame… This is the time to feel for the situation… This is the time to accept this plain truth: ‘In Life, we don’t have all the answers’!

Let me share, here, my friend Ajith’s Post…

Don’t look there, they’re dying!

By Ajith Nair

The death of sixteen migrants on the railway tracks near Aurangabad is the greatest black-mark that we will have to live with during these COVID times. Ironically, this is not even about COVID. It is about a bunch of people who had nowhere to go but back home and ended up at a place in exhaustion or desperation where a train ended their misery. The virus did not get them, our apathy did.

This worker, to me, is symbolic of the struggle to survive that none of us reading this have really experienced. Imagine having to leave your home in villages to work in a city not because you enjoy it, but because you don’t have a choice. You are so much in debt or the burdens of home and society are so unbearable that you just have to go to a ‘shehar’ and do something to cobble together cash. Cash that will serve to do what some of us take for granted - treat an ill parent, fund a child’s education, arrange a sibling’s wedding or just pay back tantamount debt that otherwise might lead to desperate measures

This migrant, whom Kerala calls a guest worker, is dignified in his/her intent, because he or she isn’t stealing… they are investing the one asset that they own, their own physical strength or some skill to earn their daily bread with dignity. It’s their labour that supports us in mostly unseen ways, every day.

The COVID 19 crisis has shattered that dignity, because the city has dropped them like hot potatoes. Some States like Karnataka dropped them like hot potatoes first and then, later, grabbed them again, because some elites felt like having French fries. For the rest, the journey back home has been one of sheer physical will, and, eventually, desperation. Mind you, there are children as little as five or six years old, who are walking on hot tar and concrete for an intended 1,000km and more. What have we done as the educated urban-elite of this country which preaches ‘Vasudeiva Kutumbakam’?

This is our stare-into-nothingness or look-elsewhere moment. Just like at traffic signals, where we refuse to look at that beggar or kid in the eye, right now, we are refusing to look at the helpless ‘guest-worker’ in the eye, because we know we have let them down. They have been our hands and legs and more in ensuring a continuing lifestyle, but now when it counts, we are hoping someone else will solve for them. Unfortunately, nobody else has and will.

These are India’s unwashed masses, who are just statistics, whose death doesn’t cause any reminiscing, long posts or insta eulogies… Guess, they are not sexy enough for any of that. Their job is to remain invisible, in life and in death…

Shame on us.

Uttam Ghosh, another dear friend of mine, has expressed it, today, through a medium he is good at – Art. I find it befitting to place it at the outset… to convey it all… Yes, through the darkness, along the wailing tracks… with a little candle in my hand…

Our hands!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Uttam Ghosh

Video: Mark Knopfler & Tom Jones/Tural Tanay