If you'd ever met Bheema...

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India: Pune - Winter 2002

If you’d ever met Bheema you’d know what I mean when I say it’s hard to forget him. He’s such a striking character and, under other circumstances, you might even have thought of him as a young lord. But not under these circumstances – oh no, definitely not.

He lives in a tent made of cardboard, sacking and plastic. That’s what he calls his ‘house’, his ghar. It’s not his home, that’s in Karnataka where his father has a farm with a few fields. But there are too many in the family to support for the size of the farm with it’s few buffalos, cows and chickens. That’s why Bheema, one of his younger brothers and his mother stay in a tent in Pune and work on building sites. And Bheema is not unusual in this – on my road there are five such tents from the same village in Karnataka nestling under a block of flats that they themselves have built and in which the ‘more fortunate’ now live. And in my locality, Sangvi, there are many such clusters of tents. After all there’s a building boom and the whole of Pune is expanding at a phenomenal rate. There’ll be no shortage of work for Bheema or the many young men like him around Sangvi, or Pune, or indeed any city in India right now.

But how did I, a foreigner living in a flat that he has built, ever come to know Bheema’s story?

There are a quite a few foreigners in Sangvi, mostly students who have come to take advantage of the cheap and reasonably prestigious education that Pune provides. There’s Boss, the Thai monk, and his friend Panya who live in the flats opposite mine. Lee and another couple from Korea live in the Block B of the flats that Bheema’s little tent village nestles against. A few other Africans live in the next street and some Bangladeshis in another, and so on. A foreigner is not so unusual in Sangvi, except that I am the only European foreigner. Bheema and his friends must have noticed me when I first moved into my flat just along the road from their tents. I was often washing or polishing the jeep when they went off to work in the morning, a garrulous group of men and boys, freshly washed and bright-eyed, in old clothes carrying Indian shovels over their shoulders. It was hard to believe they were the same group when they returned in ones and twos in the late evening or even late night – silent, slow and begrimed with cement they plodded in ones and twos past my flat to fall down exhausted outside their tents.

One day very soon after I moved in a couple of city workmen came and dug a very deep ditch from our block of flats to the central drainage chamber in the middle of the road. They replaced a pipe or something. It was done very fast for Indian workmen and I was surprised when I returned in the evening to find the soil they had laboriously shovelled out had been hastily dumped back into the ditch. Instinctively I avoided the hump of rubble over the ditch and took to the other side of the road, reversing to park the jeep at my usual spot on the road, underneath my top flat window. Late that night there was an unusual racket on the road from a truck. It’s not a busy side road, and rackets too are not unusual and trucks do use the road for building work. Even so, something told me to go and look to see what was happening. And there underneath my window I could see forthcoming disaster. A truck, overloaded with floor tiles, had gone over the hastily filled in ditch and one of it’s wheels had sunk a full foot below the level of the road. The truck was pitched over at a crazy angle and the driver was revving backwards and forwards in a desperate attempt to get it out – na halling, na dooling only pong pong karing as the Marathi joke goes. So overloaded was it though that it only sunk deeper and deeper and the truck canted over to such an angle that cement tiles slid off and clattered onto the road narrowly missing my jeep. Every extra effort only made the situation worse and the truck was tilting further and further over towards my jeep. And late though it was there was much discussion on the road. Driver, neighbours, passers by all were talking and gesticulating at the same time. Everybody had their own solution of what to do. There was much shouting and gesticulating at my jeep as more tiles slid off the truck. It was obvious that if the truck tilted any further the whole top load would slide off right onto the jeep.

I’m not sure how the Karnataka guys got involved – maybe they were passing by, just back from work and exhausted at 11.00pm, or maybe they just saw the commotion and came down the road to see what was doing! At any event they had the definitive solution and one that no one else but them could possibly have undertaken. The tallest of the guys, who I noticed was the sort of leader, organised the gang, about eight of them, to unload the truck and carry the tiles a few at a time (cement tiles are very heavy) to their destination 200 metres down the road. It was a mammoth task. There were 40,000 tiles.

As the work progressed and since there was no more drama to be got out of the situation the crowd dwindled and the street was relatively quite while the barefooted young guys silently slogged away. I watched the whole process with the fascination of a story-teller who sees a tale in the making. There was the little ugly boy of the group with spiky hair, his voice just in the breaking; a young guy with a manly face and teeth discoloured by chewing tobacco; another guy with a great physique but with one squint eye that marred his looks and who always managed two extra tiles; and there were two guys who obviously were bothers. The younger of the two had the same strong long bones as his brother but, being younger, was smaller and of slighter build. His snub nose and curly hair made his dark face look sort of cute. The older brother was the tall guy of the group. He was also one of the darkest and had the exact same features as his younger brother only they were developed to maturity. His hair was not curly though. He was dressed in very traditional style with long cream-coloured Indian kurta shirt and flowing white muslin dhoti. But there was a strange contrast in his character. Although he carried himself with a very dignified bearing that lent something of the young prince to his character at the same time he, as with the others, was very humble. He knew his place it seemed! They were all intensely aware of me but at the same time would hardly raise their eyes to meet mine. It was one of the situations in which I could almost imagine what it must have been like in the times of the British Raj.

An hour hardly seemed to make a dent in the load of tiles. I brought down a couple of jugs of chilled water and passed round glasses of water. Work stopped and despite the cool of the evening air rivulets of sweat running down right down their necks had to be mopped. With heads tilted back water, Indian style, gurgled directly down their gullets by the glassful. I soon retreated upstairs for more water. The tall brother’s eyes caught mine as he drained his glass – he face broke into a smile that revealed his even pearly white teeth. The younger brother was much too shy to look at me but I caught him peeping at me afterwards when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. For another three hours till 3.00am I kept them in water till it was decided that truck with the remaining 10,000 tiles might be moved by the combined efforts of the engine and the work gang. Besides, the tiles were now well below the level of the sides of the truck and there was no danger of any slipping out and damaging my jeep. The driver roused himself and with some to-ing and fro-ing the young heroes pushed the truck out of the now very deep rut. They whooped and cheered and capered about. More water lubricated gullets and there was much shaking of my hand. The tall guy, his brother, the one with the broken voice and the tobacco chewer were still all standing with me and they were discussing something in Kanada language. I knew that they must be wondering who I was and where I came from and so I tried Hindi. I asked the tall guy his name. Bheema! This was Bheema who later was t become a good friend. His younger brother was Bhasraj. The spiky haired boy with the breaking voice was Mudkapa and the tobacco chewer was Nagapa. Now they knew that I could manage a little Hindi Bheema was delegated to ask where I came from and what was my name and what was my work in India. It took me a bit of time to make out the Hindi from a Karnataka tongue and sometimes I had to decipher the Marathi words mixed in. But we managed, as I knew we would, and before ten minutes had passed they considered me their special friend. I asked why they had spent four hours doing work that was not theirs and the answer was that my jeep would have been damaged and no one else was prepared to save it. I offered to give them some money for their efforts, but – no, no! Almost an outraged no! They did it for me, not for the money. And before I could insist they quickly they disappeared down the road and were, no doubt, fast asleep within minutes. This was how I met Bheema, Bhasraj, Mudkapa and Nagapa.

Of course, from then on they always felt they could say hello to me in the street and they did. I’d always ask them where their work was going to be that day or what work they had just done. Most of the guys would just give the minimum replies like “work in Old Sangvi today” or “today digging” but if Bheema was there he at least would talk longer. Invariably Bheema was always with Nagapa, his best friend. Amongst the younger guys they’d form pairs or trios: Bheema and Nagapa; Kanakapa and Ardapa; Bhasraj and Murkapa and Hingapa and so on. But I was soon in confusion because there were two Bheemas, three called Bhasraj and two sharing the name Murkapa. After about 9 months I had the names sorted out but not the relationships. Bheema, who was about 19 – he wasn’t sure as no proper date had been recorded – had one of the Murkapas (20) for an uncle. Ardapa (17) was Murkapa’s younger brother and so also an uncle of Bheema. Bheema, Ardapa and Murkapa all were uncles to another Bheema! Who are cousins to whom I’ve not even tackled. But, anyway, yes, slowly I got to know who was who. They had been in the habit of using the street water-tap of the block of flats opposite my block but after they got to know me they’d come and use our street tap if they saw me there. But my relationship to them changed one day when Bheema brought me an ashen faced Kanakapa – he had crushed the end of a finger between two concrete blocks. Bheema asked if I had any ‘battery-ka paani’. There are two ways you could understand this – either ‘water for a car battery’, i.e. distilled water or ‘liquid from the car battery’, i.e. acid. I understood they wanted distilled water to wash the wound and so I gave boiled water which was as good as distilled water. Having washed the wound in my flat I could see since it was just the end of the finger there was very little chance that any bone was broken but that the skin was so mangled that it required stitching. I insisted to Bheema that he take him to a doctor, which he did, and later that night they both returned to show me, with some triumph, the bandage. There were two stitches. This was the first time that any of them came to my flat.

Bheema looked all round my flat, picking up first this and then that, asking what was this for and how much did that cost and so on. I was used to ‘price questions’ – everybody in India wants to know who much things cost. But clearly, from a tribal village and living in a tent he had never seen many of the things I had – the electric water kettle, the computer, the paper stapler, the electronic talking gift tag – so many things. I felt a little insecure as he walked round – I just wasn’t sure yet of these guys. I wanted to trust but I didn’t yet have the basis.

(That trust developed in time because Bheema and Nagapa came many times to see me in my flat and later after Nagapa went home for a few months to his village Bheema chummed up with little Murkapa, the one with the spiky hair and voice seemingly in permanent process of breaking. They were all fine and caused no problems. Of course I learned to be sensitive too – no leaving money about, which would been an unfair temptation.)

Some weeks later there was another accident, this time with a toe. Again I gave distilled water and again sent the patient to the doctor. I was asked also for headache tablets, sticking plaster, and medicine cuts and scrapes. In this way I got to know quite a few of them and they knew they could trust me to help them. I’m sure, too, that they knew they could approach me quite directly at any time without fear.

Sarajit came and stayed with me for a few days and I’d not said anything about these guys. I wanted him to form his own impression. Then, one morning, after morning bath, Bheema and Nagapa came to see me. At first they were a little shy but then they soon opened out. Sarajit was very taken with Bheema – he afterwards tried to put into words his impression of Bheema – like a young warrior, or a prince or a lord or something. And, yes, that is how I had felt too. We took photographs of them both with Sarajit.

After Sarajit left and after Mokshapriya and the others had visited, Bheema came a lot to see me usually with Nagapa but then both went back to Karnataka for several weeks to stay with their family. During that time Adhapa, one of Bheema’s younger uncles, and his friend Kanakapa used to come and see me. Again they’d ask for medicine and so on – good boys. Then, after many weeks, Bheema returned changed. Gone was the healthy moon-face, his high cheek bones protruding instead. The strongly developed chest was gone and his hip bones stuck out from a slender waist. What happened that he had lost so much weight I never found out and, although later, we gave him a good check-up, blood and urine, and found out that he was as healthy as an ox, still the extra weight never returned.

One evening we were talking in our own way – him in Hindi and me trying as best I could to follow and pitch in with pigeon Hindi. “Tension – bahut tension!” He was under great tension he told me. Why? The reason seemed to be that his eldest sister had to get married and they still didn’t have enough money. This I already knew but his tale of woe, on this night, went further. He told me that he was stuck in his life – he was earning 90 rupees a day at that time and that unless he tried doing something else he would doing this work for the rest of his life with no way out. What to do? We worked out how long it would take for him, his younger brother and mother, all in Pune, to save money for his sister’s marriage. At a combined rate of 230 rupees a day it would take about a year to pay for it. That certainly cheered him up. “But how long to marry us all?” he asked. When we worked it out the length of time was about seven years. “Saat sal? Saat!” Yes, seven years provided all were in good health and provided they worked every day. “But, then, supposing I did different work with more money?” Well, then it would take less time, I said, but what was it that he could do. “You teach me driving. Driver’s get more money.” Hmm!