Thoughts from Corona work in the field
'The chambers are overflowing, you mustn't come tomorrow', Ram informs our team. Priorities shifted, albeit temporarily but it is more important to sort the chambers than to fight Covid when confronted with overflowing septic tanks. We imagine the grey waters entering the tiny boxes, lovingly referred to by their alter-egos as a slum. We were there recently and could immediately sense that several of these houses were below the big drain and prone to flooding. But, our connection to the community is deep now and we feel agitated, wondering whether it is possible to provide support to these besieged families of D J Halli.
But then, our thoughts came back to the locked houses of Old Byppanahalli where of the 1000 families, atleast 50 have locked and moved away temporarily. Some left during the lockdown but most are attempting to leave as the railways might utilise this land for their future expansion. The NGO volunteers who part-time with FEDINA now are also beauticians from the same slum and repeat that this exodus is underway in New Byppanahalli as well. They nevertheless always go about their business efficiently filling up data sheets while exhorting the kids to wear a mask concurrently.
This does feel like a war, though we are not near the border presently. Yet, the angst of everyday worries coupled with the fear of corona destroying their lives and livelihoods is a fear that most communities tend to avoid dealing with. They need to deal with the fact that most of the non-employed men of the house are getting fatter everyday while the women juggle between managing these out-of-work workers, their children, in-laws and the myriad data-sheet yielding volunteers from Sama, Fedina, Sangama and many others who continuously besiege them with incredibly personal questions.
In the midst of all of this, one worry that assails us periodically is the lack of a proper lunch every day we are out travelling. Almost as if in cue, the land west of Swami Vivekananda Metro Station all the way to Lingarajapuram and Govindpura is uniformly bereft of the Adigas, Shanthi Sagars, Coffee Houses and all those establishments that always had been a stone throw away. Some of us forego lunch easily but in a deep-rooted message that our mothers taught us, the rest scrounge for an establishment everyday from 1-2 pm.
But as energies threaten to flag, we come across rocks such as Vijayshree who is indefatigable and unprecedented in being sprightly at the same time. She walks faster than most of us, carries a heavier backpack filled with goodies and ensures that data is collected as per the format prescribed by our team. She is incidentally, also becoming a close friend of the NGO staff in the East Zone as the poet philosopher himself who along with Nazrul will never give up hope on East Bengaluru.
While we return home everyday, often listening to the woes of the Ola drivers who have lost most of their savings in the past few months, one theme recurs and that is, several of them are sleeping in their cars as they have relinquished their rented accommodations. The better off are also having a tough time and almost as if in tandem, they mention that ' nodi sir, white board e jasti, yellow board kana la'. Many of their fellow yellow-board drivers are still in deep waters.
What takes a good vibe to end the day however is a meeting with Rajesh, who is something at Sangama and offers us sweeter tea than a maratha strongman and mentions fleetingly that he is working on posters, pamphlets, a customised tableau, survivor videos, songs, wall paintings, street theater, stickers, boards and a million other ideas.
