Zainab Bawa’s Blog

Thinking Freedom

These days, the person most on my mind is Santosh Yadav, the chanawala at the Marine Drive promenade. Santoshji and I had gradually become known to each other – he watching me regularly and I seeing him regularly on the promenade. Our interactions began with smiles, then short chit-chats and on the last day when I met him, we had a pretty long conversation where he also introduced me to his cousins who were selling sing-chana at Marine Drive . On that day, Santoshji spoke with me about his lifestyle. “I come to the promenade at 4 PM in the evening and am here till 10 PM. I earn enough money and am able to save about five to six thousand rupees a month. I sleep behind the Express Towers . Mornings are for myself. Life is good. Today, a lady from this area offered me a job. She says I will be treated well and the salary is also good. I shall go and see how it is there and then decide.”

Santoshji was recounting how life had become tough for him with the surveillance daily from the Municipality, preventing him from doing dhanda on the promenade. I don’t see him anymore. And perhaps he has taken up the job that was offered to him, not because he wanted to trade his freedom for a regular job, but because the very conditions of freedom for him to do business are increasingly being curbed by the state and he was clear that soon, hawkers would be evicted completely from the Marine Drive promenade.

I have narrated Santoshji’s story on my blog before, but these days, my thoughts are wavering on the ideas of freedom and in this regard, I miss Santoshji immensely. Santoshji, when he had spoken to me about his lifestyle, appeared satisfied with the way life was for him. He had no qualms about sleeping behind Express Towers and was happy to save enough money to send to home at the end of the month. Living on a day-to-day basis has perhaps been life for him – not intensely speculating about the future, the concerns of security which haunt our culture.

While thinking freedom, I remember also this vivid picture at Marine Drive one evening. I was waiting for Rads outside Pizzeria. Opposite the restaurant were two beggar girls, one beggar woman and two beggar boys. Of the two girls, one was about three to four years old. She was an amazing girl, completely relaxed and basking in the sun. She was lying down, her head on the pavement and one foot on top of the other, swaying the free leg in the air. After a while, she got up and the other girl and she began dancing. I was too tempted to remove my camera and shoot some pictures of the sight – the freedom in their dance, in the little girl’s mannerisms was too tempting for me. But I hesitated, lest my camera bring in pretense or consciousness.

As I think of the girl, I begin to also recollect practices in the local trains these days. Children often come begging in the ladies compartment. Day before yesterday, two ladies in the compartment were lecturing the beggar boys to find jobs in restaurants – “so many children are studying in school in the day and working in restaurants at night. Go seek some job like that instead of begging.” This kind of didactic lecturing is not novel to beggar children and drug addict children these days. I hear these repeatedly, from my own friends and kith and kin. Why does our culture reprimand begging? Is it wrong for some people to be dependent on society and for them to lead their lives the way they want to? What is it that disturbs our society about beggars, drug addicts, etc.?

While I write these words and articulate my own thoughts on freedom, I am likely to be criticized about not caring for the poor and being taken up their overt conditions. I am confirming my own thoughts on freedom whereby I don’t want state intervention in my life as well as interventions necessarily from organizations with good intentions to help the poor.

When I look at conditions in the city presently, undoubtedly there are strong attempts at homogenizing lifestyles and in this respect, cultures. Management style bureaucracy and ‘place branding’ are today’s mantra. Underlying these notions is the desire for control. The state wishes to bring loose spaces under its control, to curb business practices of unorganized economy because everything must be brought under central control. I am not meaning to present the idea and practice of control in a condemning manner, but am questioning the very sustainability of practices of control. Is that how life works – through centralized control?

As I think of Santosh Yadav and the little girl who was dancing opposite Pizzeria, my mind also wanders towards ideas of security for which we are each struggling and aspiring – purchasing property, fixed deposits, bonds, loans, assets, etc. Is this where true security lies?

In my experiences as a researcher, I realize that ‘leap of faith’ is a difficult notion for all. But I am convinced for myself that my survival is guaranteed by the relationships which I am constructing and developing with people. Maybe that’s the way life works as well …

zainab xanga