ALabor also has its own glory. Yet we only set aside some work. Children are advised that if they are not well educated, they will have to go for some kind of wage labor or fish trade.
But Nazir Hussain, a foreigner from the East, reminds us that a man cannot be measured by work and that the greatest wealth is the knowledge gained from life experiences.
Nasir shared a heartfelt note about his father, who was a laborer at the Food Corporation of India. Nasir says in a Facebook post that he is dedicating this post to all mercenaries and their dream children. He wrote this post on the occasion of his father’s death anniversary.
You can read Nasir Hussain’s Facebook post on the East Coast
My father was a porter. Bappa used to load sacks of rice from Andhra Pradesh and wheat from Punjab to the godowns on the Wellington Island in Kochi, Food Corporation of India.
During the months of April and May, these goods trains, made of iron, can only stay inside for a minute or two, and can be quite hot. It’s unthinkable today to carry these bags, which weigh over 50 kilos, on your head, walk through the wooden planks between the train and the godown, and place them in layers of sacks one or two stories high without the help of machines.
At that time a sack cost about sixty paise or so. Doing this work for eight hours is very difficult, but Dad would take two shifts in a few days, that is, sixteen hours of continuous work.
Although these workers were the most important people in the Food Corporation, they were hired on a contract basis that was renewed every year, and they did not receive any benefits, such as a pension, even after 25 years of service. His father died when he had to pay a pension of Rs.
It was not a permanent job. While working here, Bappa has been involved in months-long struggles for higher wages, for the Food Corporation of India to permanently hire such workers, and for pensions when they leave. Unlike government employees who are guaranteed jobs, monthly salaries and pensions, strikers who can be fired at any time are on strike.
After a month of work, our house was in disarray. Bappa used to buy one or two sacks of lemons from the Ernakulam market, cycle forty kilometers to Cherthala and sell the lemons to the box stores. The strike lasted for about six months. I remember Bappa saying at home that during a discussion with the workers in connection with the strike, Krishnakumar, who was later the Union Minister, passed a comment saying that loading was a very easy task, but ‘Sir, take a sack from the train and put it on your head and show it’.
Bappa, who studied only till the fourth class, was one of the first members of the Nirmala Library at Palluruthy Coventry. Bappa took me to the library and I started reading books. This library was the reason why I had to finish reading everything written by Kakkanadan, Mukundan and Muttathuvarki before the end of 10th class. What I saw as another feature of that generation was the extraordinary worldview that everyone got through reading the newspaper or giving speeches at intersections.
I have heard my father say at home that there is a president in Egypt named Najeeb when his younger brother is named Najeeb and that there is another person with him as his accomplice, Gamal Abdul Nasser, from the nationalization of the Suez Canal. No matter what the subject, I have seen that there were many people in those days who not only had a worldly view of world history, but also had a low level of education, who kept an eye on what was going on in the world, who thought about it and made their own opinions.
Perhaps I have seen more information and thoughts and thus assimilated opinions in such people than someone who has taken an MA in politics. We can now joke that ‘don’t say a word about Poland’, but it was a time when there were people who were well aware of what really happened in Poland and about World War II.
Probably a factor as to why they’re doing so poorly – and why they’re doing so poorly. When I was two years old, my father bought a plot of land in Palluruthy for five cents. At the time of his death he owned twenty cents of land. He had also saved some money in the bank on the pretext that he would not use anyone’s money if he was hospitalized.
Low-wage laborers often look to see if their children can take a job and bring home an income when they are eighteen. Teaching children is a problem for day laborers in two ways, first and foremost is the loss of income due to the child not working and the difficulty in finding the money to spend on educating the child. But in our case, not only was he raised without knowing hunger, but if he asked for money to study, he would take the money without question. That includes Rs 500 given for a computer course at Cochin College in the first year of undergraduate course, money given for studying MCA and bail to get a loan from a bank.
Many of us talk more to our mothers. I was like that too. Even though Bappa was a silent character in the background, I was more involved with Umma. The only conversations we had as a father / son were when I came home from my last year of B.Sc.
Dad used to talk a lot to people from outside, but it’s not a time when fathers and children talk a lot at home. On the day I came home from America, Dad quietly expressed his love for us by filling the fridge with my favorite crabs and fish. Now when my son comes home from university and I go to buy his favorite food, I remember Dad. Men in their fifties seem to look at their fathers in the mirror.
One thing I never understood was that my dad, who was so loving and caring, got married two more times. That’s the only reason I fought with my father and he beat me. It’s only a matter of time before I realize that polygamy is part of a human genome. It was only after watching Robert Zapolski’s lecture on tournament species and how mutations in the vasopressin hormone receptor make a man a good family man or vice versa that I came to understand my father. I will write about this at another time at length.
Today is the third death anniversary of my father. From that shoulder I see the worlds that Bappa told me.
These memories are dedicated to all the mercenaries and their dream children.
Content Highlights: a son remembers his father who worked as labourer
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