Lemonade

“Bikram…Bikkraamm!” we were used to getting up to these calls. It was the lady who used to live in front of our apartment, calling her son. The kid must have been two year old or so. Back then, we used to live in a rented place, just the two of us, me and my husband .The flat had a balcony opening above the road in front of the apartment. Not too frilly, the apartment just had 15 flats and a parking area. There was a small road right in front of the apartment (here they number it as cross and lanes, ours was the 3rd lane from the main road). Facing our apartment building, on opposite side of this road stood a house and a vacant plot. The house was bigger and the plot looked one third of the plot size on which our apartment was built.

Bikram and his parents lived in this vacant plot. There was a small shed erected on the left corner of the plot. The walls were of red bricks and the terrace was of asbestos sheets. On the side of this hut, which was towards the road, a disclaimer was written in bold black letters “This property belongs to Ramesh Rao”.

Our balcony used to open facing this plot. I used to sit there with a cup of morning coffee, looking at little Bikram annoying his mother.  His mother’s name was Reena , they came to Bangalore from Bhubaneswar few years ago when our apartment was being constructed. His father worked on construction sites; he used to work in our building and somehow managed to get this place to live in. On the condition that they will vacate the place, the moment they were asked to. I used to give Reena some of my cloths and stuff from time to time, for this mom and son used to come over to my place.

There was no bathroom in the hut. On right corner of the property, next to the boundary wall separating the road and plot, they had a small booth which was covered with old rugs; this was their make-shift bathroom. There was a big tree standing right out of the boundary wall, in a way that it concealed the bath shed. Reena had told me couple of times how grateful she was for the tree to be giving them shade and cover.

It’s beautiful when it rains, but with rain comes lot of water, the drainage system doesn’t work every year and there is water everywhere. The small road in front of our house wasn’t spared either, it was filled with water and it was getting almost impossible to walk on the road with knee deep water at times. On top of all this our municipality decided to start the work of re-laying the road and the drainage around a month before the monsoons. The whole place was a mess. With water and grime, big pot holes and half of the so-called-road-work.

We used to complain every day to our landlord that our car can hardly move out and get back into the parking space because of this mess. We wanted him to do something about this as he was a local and had his own network and connections. There was water and slime in Bikram’s plot too. But that never kept him from running around getting dirty and wet in the rain.

The spoiled road and drainage was a hot topic of discussion for the people in our apartment. Everyone used to talk about how bad the system is, how unorganized these municipal people are, how exactly every year they have some road work going on just before the rains. And how could they leave incomplete work unattended for months, like right now they had dug up the lane half the way to lay pipes and left without doing anything. The other half was left as it is and we wondered where would rest of the pipes go? How will they ever finish it at this rate? Mr Murthy of 201 even suggested we should vacate the flats together to make the owner learn a lesson, as he had connections with all big shots of the city and still did not bother to take any action.

But all this happened only when people met in corridors, over tea/coffee in each other’s place or buying groceries in a nearby supermarket, standing in the parking lot, waiting for the rain to stop. No one really did anything. It was just part of socializing. Conversation starters.

On a Friday, the rain god was taking a break, it was just drizzling. I was walking down the road towards home after office, when I saw that finally the workers were back. They were now digging up the rest half of the lane. I went up to my flat and my neighbor Shailaja asked enthusiastically “they are here, did you see?” “Yes, I just saw” I said with a smile opening the door. Shailaja wanted to talk more about how bad the whole system is but I was tired so I smiled again and got in and locked the door.

It was a beautiful Saturday.We woke up late and got on with our chores. There was a constant noise due to the road work. After we had our breakfast, we got out on the balcony with coffee. Bikram and family were out working on a construction site , Reena used to go along with her husband to work some days and used to take little Bikram along. Hubby was getting another chair when I noticed that the workers were cutting off the tree that stood next to the road. I was taken aback, this was the only bit of greenery left in that locality and they were cutting this off too! Both of us were upset about this and decided to go down and ask what is going on.

We found the supervisor of the lot and enquired. He reasoned out to us that this tree was on the way of the trench they were digging for laying pipes and there is nothing they or we could do about it. “Moreover its Government’s tree madaam “he said. We suggested they move the channel bit around the tree if possible. But it was not possible and we understood we can’t save the tree.

I did not get out on the balcony the whole day, within an hour or so the even noise of cutting was gone and we knew the tree is gone too.

Around 5 PM, I got out on the balcony with my evening tea, almost all the workers had left for the day with only a few remaining. The sight of our good old tree lying lifeless was upsetting, what was even annoying was that it had fallen on top of Bikram’s bath shed! The make-shift bathroom couldn’t handle the weight and had given up. The whole place was a mess. Workers did not even clean up the leaves or broken branches. They just removed the stump and left the fallen tree unattended! I was furious. I felt bad for Reena .What would they do now?  Where would they shower? The so-called bathroom was also gone and the whole tree had fallen inside their plot. So many leaves and branches all over the place.

This was not fair. I called one of the workers and asked him to clean up the mess created by them. He plainly said “time over madam- waise bhi humara kaam nahi madam(the working hours are over and its anyways not our job)” I argued and he argued back that this wasn’t in their contract and they are not responsible for the tree. They couldn’t let the tree fall on the road as it would have blocked the road. Other families were out on the balconies in some time, and some of them supported us, asking the workers to clean up in native language. Sensing trouble, within seconds they packed up and left. I was very upset thinking about Bikram’s family’s plight. It started raining, very heavily. Suddenly the wonderful climate had turned into a sad, teary one. Power went out in sometime and we decided to turn in early. I kept looking out of the window to check if Reena was back, but didn’t see them around. We guessed, seeing the mess they might have decided to spend the night somewhere else.

I did not sleep very well that night, partially due to the mood and rest due to the long Power cut. Power came back in wee hours of morning and that’s when I dozed off.  It was almost noon when I woke up to the sound of an Axe cutting wood. I woke up with a jolt, wondering if the workers came back and were indeed cleaning up! Surprised, shocked and somewhere delighted I opened the balcony and stepped out.

The tree was gone. The place where the bath-shed stood was cleaned up. Instead there was now a brand new bathroom, in the other extreme right corner, away from the road. The walls were held with pieces of wood. Wrapped around and in between, with a large blue plastic sheet (generally used in construction and make-shift tents). The roof had wood and blue plastic too, but it was covered completely, with Leaves! Lots and lots of leaves!

Bikram was sitting with his Dad on the doorstep of their shed. He was curiously looking at his father, who was cutting the rest of the wood into small logs. Reena was tying the finished logs in small bundles and taking them inside their home. They were going to use it for cooking.

I was speechless, I couldn’t even call up my husband to come and have a look. I was amazed by the turn of events. By the way a residual of destruction was converted into something so constructive and positive. I was astounded by the way they had used all the bits and pieces of this resource that had come their way and by the very fact that they were not complaining about anything. They were happy. Smiling and laughing, simply delighted that nature had found a way to gift them something.

Something had been tossed on them, which was considered unfortunate and destroying by everyone. They picked it up and created the best they could. They made use of everything they found, to make life easier. Happier.

“They made a bridge out of the stones on their path; they made sweet lemonade out of the lemons thrown at them”