April 26, 2020, The Liberacy:- Sarita, a Journalist, working day and night to the struggling days, hails from the high-profile city of Mumbai. The people of her office garthered near her desk when she narrated the story of Reena, whom she met while on her visit to a small village named “Karampur”, and in the beginning, while she was there to start narration, she questioned,
Why we need Gandhi now?
Reena is a proud Harijan of Mahatma Gandhi. She is a mother of two daughters, a caretaker of her old Mother-in-law and a sorrower of her deceased husband that brought a big responsibility on her shoulders.
Sarita, the proud city girl journalist, doing her own business of looking at the poverty in the village from a Mumbaikar’s eye had a fixed disgusted face as she clicked pictures and tried to address the issue, on which she can make a story.
The high town lad who owned a washing machine in the town was looking at a pond next to a Vishnu temple of Karampur village. Women washing clothes in a group, chitchatting and laughing to the facilities they didn’t have. With a brief look to the other shore of the pond, she found a single woman with her 6-year-old daughter around her, focused on the bucket of clothes she had.
Unlike this group of women, that lady on the other shore didn’t have a big pile of detergent foam around the clothes she washed, the poverty spoke.
Sarita, proud of how she pointed out the poverty, ran to the woman. Reena, was her name, a widow.
Sarita, hoping in the path of getting some content for her story, she stressed on visiting her place. Which she got.
The slums of Mumbai were better than her small mud-walled and dry grass roof Hut, with an old lady lying to find death and two of her young girls looking for a life.
There was bulb tied to a long wire over the bamboo on the roof of her hut, and looking at the darkness inside the hut Sarita impressed upon turning it on and asked, “Where is the button?” to which her 6-year-old giggled and said, Button nahi hai, jab light aati hai tab yeh jalta hai (There is no button, if they give electricity, it glows)
Sarita, found the fragmented pieces of the society, at this modern age when Reena was stopped from walking on a street. There was supposed to be a high-caste festival on the street, so Reena took another path. The Harijans of Mahatma Gandhi are still untouchable in remote areas of the country where no one knows what is Article 17 of the Constitution of India.
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Sarita was aware of the reservation in the Indian society, as it was the most talked-about thing in her college, due to the seats reserved and money subsidies to the castes.
The fact that she wasn’t aware of, was that the food in any part of the world costs the same. How can someone like Reena, afford to educate her daughter when the only source of her income was from cleaning the utensils of the higher caste people in society.
The amount as less as 500 rupees was like a million-dollar dream for Reena.
Reena’s daughters are above the age of 5 but still, are stranded out of the educational blessings because they are Harijan, and they cannot sit on the same level as the children of Higher Class people.
They often remained a spectator of the temple walls. Many never saw what the idols inside looked like.
“You are suitable for cleaning the toilets, not turning the pages.” the worst remark Sarita found on her trip of Karampur.
The people destined to do jobs like cleaning toilets and nothing else were the Impure Bloods. People called them Dalit and Gandhi called them Harijan (Gods people).
Sarita, the high born of Mumbai held her head looking at the reality of her own society and finding the meaning for the most politicized words, said, “We need a welder like Gandhi to weld the broken pieces of his Harijan.”