THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

                    THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

It’s a natural human tendency to perceptionalize a thing according to his comfort. We see a thing, analyze it and make a view about it that pleases us. Whenever we come across that thing in future, we view it again the same way. If there is even a minimum chance of our views being wrong, we console ourselves that it can’t be. But as every coin has two face, so everything and situation have too. But we tend to ignore the ideas that contradict our views.

This is the exact situation we have been facing in Assam- the Bangladeshi illegal immigrant problem. Let me first make it clear that this article is not meant to support the claim of illegal Bangladeshis in Assam neither does it is intended to hurt someone’s feelings. It’s just a minute observation which I wanted to share with you.

Well I live in Guwahati and I was back to my home for the weekend from my hostel.  We live in a typical Assam type (people say so) house. Our kitchen was demolished as it was in total despair and needed to be reconstructed. When I reached my house, the construction work was already in progress.  I looked around and saw a man who was the mason joining bricks, talked to him and came to know his name was Ajay das. Then I saw a women carrying bricks from near the road, on her head in bunches of 5 and dumping it near the mason. The woman was in her mid-thirties. She was wearing a parrot green saree with black floral prints, which is commonly seen worn by Bangladeshi women. Her teeth were covered in red due to the constant chewing of betel nut, with red saliva dripping from the side of her lips. She had a big black Chinese mobile hanging from her waist with native language songs being played on it on loud volume (you can imagine yourself the sound power of Chinese mobiles). These traits were sufficient for me to figure out that she is a Bangladeshi immigrant, as the people in Assam can very well differentiate an outsider from the locals.

Next day I asked my mom “how much are we paying her for doing that brick carrying thing?”

Mom replied, “300 per day, for all the labour type work.”

I thought it’s a good amount of money. She can easily earn 3000 to 4000 per month.

Later that afternoon, I saw her taking her lunch. She sat on the ground in the construction site, opened her round tiffin. There was rice whose grains were as big as peanuts and along with it a very little amount of fried potato. I felt bad for her. Infact she was doing the harder work, for the whole day and that too surviving on this food. I told her not to bring food from next day as she will be provided food from our side.

Later on that evening when she was sitting near our verandah and having tea, I went to her to talk.

I asked her “ baido, what’s your name ?”

She replied with a smile “ babu, I am jamila begum .”

“ so who are there in your family and where you stay in Guwahati ?” I shot one more question.

“babu, I have a daughter who is 7 years old and my husband left me. I stay at shantipur. My daughter is with my parents back there in dhubri.”

I asked her why she doesn’t keep her only daughter with her inspite of living alone.

She replied “babu, I have to work for full day from dawn to dusk, no one will be there to look after my daughter. Besides Guwahati city is not safe, no one knows what type of people are residing near you. I don’t feel safe to bring my daughter here. Moreover I have admitted her in a government school in Dhubri itself. I send money to my parents to look after her.”

I was surprised by her answer. I further enquired “how much do you earn and how you manage?

She replied “I earn around 3000 to 4000 per month, sometimes when there is not much work then even 2500 too. I have to pay the house rent of rs 1000 and I send 1000 to my parents to pay for my daughter’s tuition fees, whatever is left is spent on my food and medicines. Sometimes I manage to save few hundred rupees so that I can gift clothes to my daughter on IDD.”

I was moved by her words. Though she was poor yet she was honest and hardworking.

She also added,” Babu, I do everything to get my daughter educated. I am living this type of life , I don’t want the same for my daughter. I want to get her educated as I know only education can uplift us from this state of misery and poverty, and I leave no stones unturned to achieve it.

Now that was a dose of philosophy I wasn’t expecting from her. It was so hard to believe that such were her views. In fact I was also amongst the ones who don’t like Bangladeshi people as most people of Assam, but there was a sudden rise of respect for her in my heart.  My perception about her earlier when I first saw her was that yet one another Bangladeshi immigrant eating up the job of local people, but after talking to her I realized the reasons. My perception changed, if not for the whole number, but for her at least.

Again, I’ m not saying that all those illegal immigrants are same as her. In fact we see many of them getting caught committing various crimes in the state such as rape, dacoity etc. Moreover I do support the fact that this influx is hampering the local economy. But at the same time if we see the other side of the coin, if we see things from their view, then maybe we can think slightly different, if not support them, then at least have a little sense of humanity for them as fellow humans.

P.S- the pictures used in this post are from internet