Mumbai Diaries - 2

I walk into the living room and she’s sitting crouched on the floor, hands up against her head in fatigue and despair. Her hair is pale orange from repeated colouring with henna, sparse now with a thin middle parting. More than the lines on her face, her worn-to-the-bone muscles belie her age. Her skin is a dark brown, burnt from years of walking in the sun with a tattered gunny sack full of bhangar (scraps) on her head. She’s wearing a maroon and green sari tied in the Maharashtrian way, faded with age and frayed from constant washing.

“Ajji has stopped calling me from the balcony window,” she inquires with my mom about my grandmother, “what happened? Have you found somebody else to sell your bottles to?”

“She died a couple of years ago,” my mother replies, also addressing the bent woman as Ajji in deference to her age. “Oh,” the bhangarwaali sighs and falls silent.

soda bottles, old caps, scraps of metal from cans – “I’ll take anything”, the woman tells me.

“Times are hard,” she goes on, “I’ve been walking through this neighbourhood for years, but nobody calls out to me anymore.” My mother and I nod in commiseration. “What’s more my only son is of working age but he had an accident recently. His leg is in a cast and I’m the only breadwinner now. But it’s hard to make any money like this…” her voice trails off as she begins counting the odds and ends that are now filling up half the room.

“Go get some old saris and some of your brother’s old shirts;” my mother instructs me in a whisper, “she and her son will at least get some use out of them.”

When I come back her sack is bursting to the brim with over 30 bottles and some scraps. “That will be 15 rupees,” she says, pulling out a few notes from the inside of her blouse where she keeps her precious money for safekeeping. In the background, TV hosts are crying themselves hoarse about the recent move to demonetise currency in an effort to make all payments digital. “This is a great leap forward for India,” they say enthusiastically. My mother takes the money from the woman’s outstretched hand; ‘that’s 50 paise per item,” I think offhandedly.

As the bhangarwaali ties up her gunny bag, I hand her a half-torn backpack filled with old clothes. She looks up and beams. “May god bless you and your daughter,” she says to my mother. We tell her we hope her son gets well soon.

The bhangarwaali shuffles her way out of our front door, straining with the weight of the sack on her head. I close the door behind her and ask my mother why she even bothered to take such a small amount from the old woman. “I’ve known her for years. She takes great pride in earning her own living.” I fold the two notes into my wallet to use as small change for my next errand and go back to watching television.