REMEMBERING MUNNI

It was a Saturday morning in the rainy season. I'd just been visiting Mr. Patel, the Works Manager at the Khatau Mills in Byculla. When I went in, it was a lovely sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.

When I came out, an hour later, a dark monsoon cloud, pregnant with rain, was racing in over the ocean. I figured I still had time to make the office before it came down.

But monsoon storms move fast. Very fast. I was just halfway up Apna Jhopadpatti when it started bucketing down.

There are times and days when all I really want to do is just stand there and let the rain soak me to the skin. But this wasn't one of them. I had equipment and papers to keep dry.

So I headed directly for Rehmat's hut.

In the rainy season, most of the pavement dwellers try to keep dry by stretching sheets of plastic from the roof down to the actual road, hooking it under the legs of their charpoys.

This is sensible, but it does make the huts look all alike.
I stopped at what I thought was Hut #79, pulled back the plastic and knocked at the door, waiting for Rehmat to open up.
A small, middle-aged woman with twinkling eyes opened. Certainly not Rehmat. So, by simple deduction, it had to be her mother.

"So you're Rehmat's mother? We've never actually met. My name's Julian. And yours?"
"Luisa de Sousa. Yes, I am Rehmat's Mother."
"It did seem a bit odd that Rehmat's mother had a Christian name and spoke impeccable English. And Rehmat didn't speak a word of it."
"Where did you learn your English?"
"I studied up to Fourth Standard."
"Then why doesn't Rehmat speak English? You didn't teach her? You are her mother? Right?"
"No, not her actual mother! Her Auntie. See, here, this is my real daughter."
And Luisa reached up to a shelf and brought down a large framed black and white photo, prematurely faded in the humidity. It wasn't a great photo, and the face didn't immediately say anything to me.
"What's her name?"
"Her name was Munni."
"Munni was your daughter!"
"Yes, she was my daughter. Her real name was Lucy Fires. It's been six years since she died."


I was suddenly very excited indeed! By pure chance I had stumbled across a link with my very first day with the pavement dwellers of Byculla.

It was late October 1986. Someone suggested I go to Byculla to meet some women who were working with pavement dwellers. I only vaguely understood what the term meant. I really didn't know the reality of their lives.

One of the pavement dwellers volunteered to answer my questions. I don't remember what she looked like, except she was young, had bags of self-confidence, and was articulate.

It was Munni.

I won't bore you with the interview. It was good, still sounds good. Munni told me she'd been born on Apna Jhopadpatti, She had just got married and moved, to the other side of the street, under the high walls of the Khatau Mills. Her husband was a driver for the BMC. He earned enough so that Munni did not have to go out and work, not yet anyway.

Munni was very much the leader of the fledgling organisation of Byculla pavement dwellers, an organisation they'd just formed and called Mahila Milan or Women Coming Together, She was being groomed to run for the city council. She was literate, articulate, self-confident. She would have made a good politician, in the best sense of the word.

I met Munni again, two years later. I've always had a lousy memory for names and faces, so I interviewed her all over again. Munni was patient and polite. But at the end, she quietly let me know we had met before.

This was the last time I was to see Munni. That winter, she became pregnant. But there was trouble between her and her husband. He was drinking. In April 1989, already seven months pregnant, Munni warned her husband that if he came home drunk one more time, she would kill herself.

Towards the end of that month, the inevitable happened.

Munni doused herself in kerosene and set herself on fire. She was rushed to the Masina Hospital. Her baby was delivered stillborn. Munni died from third-degree burns after three days and nights of agony.

Even today, if you mention Munni's name, the women who were with her that day suddenly go quiet. Munni is the leader cut down before her prime. Others have since picked up the torch. But Munni's the one who lives on in their hearts. On my few spools of recording tape.

And in a faded photo on a wall in Hut #78 next to the Byculla Fire Station.

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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