WATER STREET, USA

Pavement Dwellers may be officially homeless. But they are not beggars or on welfare. Most of them work, some occasionally, many full-time. In and around the streets around the Khatau Mills there are probably enough small businesses to fill a phone directory, doing all the things we take for granted but that keep a sophisticated urban economy functioning smoothly.

Sakina's invited me and Kamal for lunch in her hut on Water Street, which runs parallel to Apna Jhopadpatti. She knows I prefer fish to meat, so she's stretching her budget to be the gracious host.
At the corner of Jhula Maidan Sakina eyes our lunch. But the fish lady wants forty Rupees a kilo for fresh Halva. Sakina can't afford that. She wants it at twenty five Rupees a kilo. Halva's delicious. It's a type of Pomfret, a flaky fish found in the Arabian Sea, white on the inside, black on the outside.

"Just one fish. No one else eats it in our house. 25 Rupees a kg"

"OK, Mother. I'll tell you what: for 250 grams six Rupees. We'll split the difference. You want it sliced thin? You want me to scale it?"

The Fish lady hands the halva to her assistant squatting behind her on the pavement. He cuts the fish, then deftly scales it, wiping the scales on to the roadway.

"Here, take Mother!" He plops the halva into Sakina's plastic shopping bag.

On the other corner, tomato, banana and onion wallahs are lustily shouting their wares and their prices. Bananas five Rupees a kilo, tomatoes three Rupees a pound.

This isn't the regular market. That's over the other side of Jhula Maidan. This one sprung up in the wake of the 1993 riots. The official market's run by Hindus. But they started acting petty towards the Muslims. They'd serve the best fruit and meat to their Hindu customers. Or they'd pretend not to see the Muslims even when they were first in line.

So, some enterprising Muslim sellers migrated a hundred yards to the corner of Jhula Maidan and Maulana Azad Road. And because the area is overwhelmingly Muslim, they've been doing a roaring trade. The official market's half-empty these days.

At the top end of Apna Street the official business day's just getting underway. The Aziz Broiler Farm shop's stocking up on a couple of hundred squawking hens that'll be lucky to make it past midday. The Hallal butcher's setting out choice cuts of mutton and beef. Further down, men are welding, and old cooking oil tins are being unloaded, to be flattened into flat piles of scrap for recycling somewhere else in the city.

We turn left on to Water Street. Kamal hasn't been here for years. Sakina fills her in with who lives where. "Rehmat's at the bottom of Apna Jhopadpatti, Banoo lives on the corner of Water Street. There's Mustari."

Sakina's hut's half-way down Water Street, built against the Khatau Mills. It's an unusual hut. You enter through a curtain into ...well, the only thing that springs to mind is an antechamber. A small separate space which doubles as a private bathroom. There's a small mirror hanging from a bamboo pole and in the middle of the pavement a large plastic bucket with an old plastic lavatory seat on top.

There's something incredibly dignified about this little set-up. Sakina, hobbled by a badly-set ankle, deserted by her husband, a life more of sadness than joy, performs her toilette in a style and grace that would not be out of place in a French chateau. Inside the main room, Sakina's eldest daughter Gausia's finishing some sewing. Sakina tells her to get the meal on:

"Roll out the dough for the rotis. And put the rice to boil!"

Sakina tells Kamal she’s bought the fish just for: “Otherwise, we don't eat fish. I’m cooking it just for him” Which means I’ll have to eat it all or appear very rude and ungrateful because Kamal’s suddenly decided she’s not hungry and doesn’t even want anything to drink. I will have to eat for the both of us.

Sakina primes the stove to heat water for the rice, warns Kamal to make sure her palloo - the corner of the sari that hangs over the shoulder, doesn't get too near the flames

Gausia washes the halva. Sakina explains that if you wash fish with salt that takes away the smell.

"And do the tomatoes and spuds separately!

"And what spices shall we use today?"

And before you know it Sakina and Kamal are exchanging recipes for biryani. I’m interested in the actual halva which has greyish black skin. Inside it’s flaky white like pomfret.

“Sakina, what did you just put in? I ask. “I put salt, tumeric powder, red chilly powder and garlic and ginger...I keep a box full of ginger and garlic, which is grounded because I get lots of orders from the office to cook at a short notice for different visitors.” Gausia says it's a pain to have to grind all the spices up each time. So they keep a jar of masala mix - one kilo each of salt, garlic and ginger.

Gausia looks at her watch. "Time to go over the road to the school. You want to come and see?"
Bang opposite. Two small brick rooms, brightly painted. Two teachers - Razia and Sayeeda. Twelve girls, ten boys, toddlers - three and four years old, in little red and white check uniforms. For the past ten years, Sakina and Gausia have been coming over here every morning to feed snacks, wipe bottoms, wash sticky fingers, generally help out.

It's a strange mixture of Islamic prayers, ABCs, and numbers 1 thru 10 to English nursery rhymes that went out long before even I went to kindergarten.

The tiny tots chant "Johnny, Johnny! Yes, papa. Rosy blips, chubby cheeks" I suspect there's something culturally incorrect about some of this stuff. It's no better over with the boys! Still, putting sociological theories aside, I suppose if that's the way you learn English and it works then let it be.

And then Sakina sings them all a song asking God to watch over the children, who, in turn, must pay proper respect to their parents. Some of the boys start to fidget. Razia and Sayeeda - the two teachers - bring them smartly back into line.

On Water Street, this is how a culture stays alive, how it's passed down the generations. This is how Sakina once learnt the tunes that she adapts for her own songs - all those years ago, back in Hyderabad.

But now it's back across the road to continue preparing lunch. The peeling knife's blunt. Sakina sharpens it on a whet-stone. Salad is cut, salad is rinsed. Tomatoes, potatoes diced. "Put some more curry leaves in with it." "You can leave it cooking. Another half hour, at least. We've got time to do some sewing."

We all leave together. I've got to see someone up the top of Water Street. I promise to come back in fifteen minutes

When we return, Sakina and Gausia are sitting on top of a wooden shelf outside their hut but protected from rain and sun by an extension of the roof. A sort of parlor from which they can work and watch the world go by.

“What are you doing here, Saklna? She explains matter-of-factly that she’s snipping off stray threads around the button holes on some brightly-clored cotton blouses. “So you get these delivered everyday to you?

“Every day, these pieces are delivered to us. But sometimes, if they don't get a chance, to come here, then we go and get it.” Sakina says they usually manage about 50 blouses a day between the two of them. On a good day, maybe a hundred. Pay is just 7 Rupees 50 Paisa for 50 blouses, the price of the fish we're about to eat.

I ask Kamal: “What's the label on that one say?” She squints: “Pier 1 Imports, New York, made in India..100 % cotton. There are washing instructions on the label.”

The last thing I’d have suspected.! I sift through the finished blouses. - Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue. So this is where the final finishing work, the quality control is done. Right here, by Sakina and Gausia and thousands like them..

I can’t resist the obvious:”How much do you think that sells for in the United States? Just make a guess!”
Sakina thinks hard: “ This one?..It is very expensive!” She knows this is a trick question, that she'll probably get it wrong whatever she says. So, first she makes the disclaimer. “I cannot guess, because I've never been to America. I've no idea!”

I press her again. “OK, I think it could be sold for 100, 150 Rupees in America.” “Probably costs about ten times as much. About 1,000 to 1,500 Rupees.” “Really!!??.....

Maybe Sakina should demand a raise? “I know we can do it one day if we are together. But in this community we are not together. if I say I will not work for this low wage there are twenty other women who will go and grab the work and bring it home. So, we have no other choice!

The Halva is eventually eaten and pronounced delicious, even though I'm the only one eating it. As I walk back up to Jhula Maidan, the fish wallahs, the bhaji wallahs, are still at it. But I'm thinking how unfair the other sort of marketplace can be. Now, all of us like to see prices stay down. But if we knew the reason why, maybe we wouldn't be quite so happy.

Sakina has no leverage. There are millions more women looking for work, any work, at any price..or any wage. If Sakina pushes for a living wage, then the manufacturer will simply sack her. By the end of that day he'll have found a hundred women to take her place, maybe for even less money.

Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episodes 33 - 35

Main Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3

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