Mr. Fredericksen sold balloons to kids. He made a living out of it. Him and his wife lived a happy life. I can't say the same about the woman I met, today.
M.G Road, Pune seems to elicit emotions in me that few other places do. You will find hawkers and vendors of all kinds- stones to watches, books to phones, thrift-shops to Van Heusen, street food to McDonalds, kids to septagenarians. Today, I met two old people on that street. I probably helped one and expressly denied it to another. I am upset about the help I denied.
I had gone for a talk at the Loft House on Antibiotic Resistance: The Only War we Need to Fight with a friend. After the talk, we headed towards Pune Zarthosthi. On our way, we saw an old man, lanky, with few teeth all of which were stained. His knees were bent and his statute was low. He was selling some sort of edible jelly on a bandi. It was cut into several slabs randomly arranged on the bandi. He covered the jelly with a transparent sheet weighed down by 250gm weights. Before him, he had a blunt knife to cut portions of the slabs and a physical balance to weigh the portions. He was selling these portions on square-cut exam question papers from the nearby junior colleges or coaching centres.
I stared at it. Three years after I came to this city, I thought I finally saw someone sell it. I thought right.
I went to the man and asked him what it was. He replied with its name in Marathi. Of course, I did not understand it. My instincts pushed me into trying it. He cut a slab-portion and weighed it on his scales, meticulously. He then cut a thin columnar cuboid from the bigger slabs and added it to the slab-portion. The man cut all of this into smaller cubes which were convenient to eat. We got 8 cubes for 20 rupees.
I put a cube in my mouth and there it was: a soft, smooth, viscous jelly exploding with the tastes of jaggery, coconut and milk from a pregnant cow. "This is Junnu," I exclaimed to my friend. It didn't matter that it was different from how it is made at home. It didn't matter that it had coconut instead of elaichi powder and cumin. As I explained my excitement to my friend, the old main looked at me and my hand gestures with intrigued amusement. He had a subtle smile on his face. It didn't take us a minute to finish the 8 cubes. I asked for some more. He cut me bigger portions and charged me 40 rupees which I happily paid. I thanked him and he responded with a warm, meaningful smile.
Now that I think of it, how different are all of us, really? Different society, different language, different amount of money to spend; at the end of the day, we eat the same food and feel happy about the same things. Must we create conflict among ourselves in the space of this little 'more or less?'
My friend and I ate a lot of food after the Junnu. We had lots of food at Zarthosthi and we had lots of food at Pasteur.
Outside Pasteur, an old woman was sitting next to a helium gas tank. Balloons of different colours were tied to the nozzle of the tank. One of the balloons which was metallic purple in colour was shaped as a dolphin. They were all tied with a long, thin thread swaying to the gentle wind. We wanted to buy a balloon.
We asked the woman how much she would charge for a balloon. She muttered a monosyllable. Her voice was hoarse and low. She had to repeat herself thrice before we understood that she said bees. Twenty. We bought two round balloons. One of them had butterflies on it. All this time, we had a softy in each of our hands. She gave us two balloons and suggested we buy 5 for a hundred rupees. Usually, a person would understand that such a proposal would not be receive a positive response.
But, I would dare say she was a usual person. She was old, sufficiently old for one to question the purpose of her selling balloons in the cold night. She was ill. She was in dire poverty. Hundred rupees would indeed work miracles for her while, in comparison, it would be a trivial expenditure on our part. Yet, we refused. She tried to sell the metallic purple dolphin. We refused that, as well. Finally, she asked us what she really wanted.
She pulled her five fingers close to each other and inched them closer to her mouth. She wanted food. We had two softies, arguably a luxury for most, in our hands. We had a balloon costing twenty rupees in our hands- A sum that could earn her the ability to provide for a lot of things; and a sum that would not give me something I don't already have. Sure, we paid her the money due. Seldom do we in the higher classes realise what a little extra disposable income can do.
Beggars can't be choosers, I am told. Is there a more despicable thing to say? Why, aren't poor people human beings who have the same desires as anyone else? Would they not want to save some money or earn some extra income to last beyond the night? Abhijist Banerjee and Esther Duflo make a strong case for looking at poor people as daily human beings in their book Poor Economics. In their numerous studies, they show how their desires are not different from ours; and how in the failure to recognize this, most of our welfare policies fail to bear fruit.
All of this was in my head. Yet, I refused to buy her food. She didn't stop gesturing her hunger for food even when we walked a few steps ahead. Yet, I did not buy her food. I have no answer why. I don't know what came over me. I will not fall prey to attributing this guilt to the first reason that pops into my mind. Probably, I didn't because I didn't want to. Probably, I didn't because I did not feel like paying beyond what I already have. Does it matter? I do not feel nice about what I did.
Is there hypocrisy in this? I willingly buy food for a kid or adult who beg for money and do little else. But, I would refuse food to an old woman who was trying to work for her money. It is perhaps a lesson for the future.
The balloon is grounded at home with an empty box of Pears soap. When I look at the butterflies on the balloon gently sway to breeze of the fan, I can only wonder how much the old woman needed what she asked of me.
