I was on my walk this morning and I time myself but I spotted him and requested him to stop I told him to tell me something about himself as I want to write about ragpickers .
And he told me his name is Mohomed Saddam Hussain.
I asked him how many hours he spends on ragpicking .. he said 8 hours and he does it in the night .I asked him how much does he earn per day ,, he said Rs 250 to Rs 300 .
I did not want to break the rhythm of my walk and I dod not have have the astute questioning power of a journalist ..and neither were my questioned posed to him rapidly ..
My last question was do the cops hassle him or take money from him ,he said no , but he added if he has not had a bath or is in a bedraggled appearance they lock him up as a suspect .. in the night .
And I moved away thanking him , sadly there were many questions I did not ask him , like how long has he been doing this work, where does he live , does he have a family to support and of course he would refuse to answer me if I said are you a drug addict , as most of them with this plastic bag on their shoulders are into brown sugar and are colloquially known as gardalus . And these were after thoughts as I passed him and moved for the next part of my walk to MET Gardens .
I left my house in the morning at 5.30 am from Bandra Reclamation Lal Mitti , today was my 9 day of strenuous brisk walking,,I reach the end of Bandra Reclamation beyond ONGC quarters beyond the Bus Depot till the last building called Agasti I was there at 5.45 am I take a U turn pass the Leelavati Hospital and reach the MET gardens at 5.59 a minute before the Mount Carmel Church bells began to chime , but before that just outside the Met Gardens I congratulated a Marathi lady senior citizen , educated she distributes milk and she is here by 5 am I think and she is the only woman among all the men helping her unload the milk for the sellers from a refrigerated truck..I told she was doing a great job and I was impressed with her and thus reached the MET Garden gates .
At 6.07 the sonorous sounds of azan from a nearby Muslim Mosque
I normally take ten rounds a round is about 280 mtrs and this time I pushed my self an extra 5 rounds I finished 15 rounds at 6.59 and I could see the Marathi lady busy with her work from the MET Garden fencing.. and this is Woman Empowerment and a woman's humility and hard work.
I reached home wife gives me a cold glass of milk and tired I hit the sack again not before watching my grand daughter Nerjis 3 year old making her own sweet Paratha she kneads the flour and with deft artists hands she will make a perfect round and hand it over to my wife to do the rest .. this is her breakfast with milk .. she has been kneading shaping the chapattis since the age of 2 ..
Marziya was getting ready to go to school the third grand daughter Zinnia is with her maternal grandmother in town who has undergone angioplasty..
