The Elusive Intelligence

R.Kumaran
For Dhina silence is the only answer when asked of his future. He does not take part in the discussion on what future holds for him. Ask his father, Agasti. He appears perplexed for a while before saying quite nonchalantly, If he has intelligence (Bhuddhi) he would do some other good job, otherwise he has to carry on what I do now. If Agasti looks at the future for himself and for his son as extended stretch of life mired in poverty, that is only reflective of long history of life in poverty for himself and his family. For Agasti it is poverty that seems continuous and assured to be with him. Experiences of poverty are eternal and to get out of it calls for a major miracle and accident. Indeed, poverty did not come in the lives of Agastis family members as a devastating rupture. As they were poor in the limits of Agastis memory, there is no understanding of when he or his family had slipped into poverty. There is no lowest point other than what they have already reached. Thus there is no slipping down. In their lives it is slipping out of poverty that has to come as a disruption in the otherwise continuously stretched experiences of poverty. They dont foresee such disruption in the near future. Perhaps, that is why this evasive reply from Agasti. He does not remember any one of his family members having successfully broken out of this vicious circle. No knowledge of anyone of his kindred slipping out of it in the village he hails from. Agasti believes what was impossible for his grandfather and father should be impossible for him too and Dhina has only sincerely inherited this wisdom from his father. When posed the question What do you want to become in future? Dhina looks at his father even as he plays with the very sand that he would turn into clay and roll them into ball when involved in the work along with his father and mother during the hectic days of work. Now it is off-season for them. And his fathers reply is what comes at the end of the first paragraph of this story. In many middle class families the aspirations of the children are aspirations of the adult world that has successfully transferred its anxieties and greed on to their children. The ones in the

forefront of the adult world who continues to triumph upon the world of children are the parents. It is these adult representatives who inaugurate a world full of fixed possibilities for their children. They disclose an adult world filled with desirable images of doctors, engineers, and all other moneymaking and power-mongering ideals to their children. That is why rarely do we hear of a child that wants to become a painter, a play write, a novelist etc. Here in the world of Dhina, once again the adult world of his father Agasti has emerged victorious over his sons child world but with a difference! Unlike the middle class children, Dhina aspires to nothing, because his father and mother have aspired for nothing, nor do they have some lack that they wish to fill through their son. The very emptiness of an answer is a mere evidence of what his father reserved for him. This is particularly so because Agasti believes that in his life, he has only became poorer. In comparison to his grandfather days he has become more impoverished. And what life holds for his son is even worse. Agasti recalls that his grandfather owned a piece of land whereas his father was an agricultural labour in the field of other landowners. But in his life he has become a bonded labour working in far away places, as agricultural work is not available due to poor rainfall and repeated drought in his village in Orissa. Even the drought relief given by the government was offered only to those with ration card. He did not have one, so he bribed the officials by selling his utensils to get the ration card, but to no avail. After parting with three hundred rupees, he could never hope to get 3000/- rupees, even after six months. He then migrated to the Dindigal area in Andhra Pradesh for working in the brickilns some fifteen years back. When the contractor in his village offered him an advance of Rs. 2000/-, it was godsend. Those days he was having lot of difficulty without money and work. Having accepted the advance, he arrived Andhra Pradesh along with his brother to work in the brickilns. Those days 30/rupees will be paid for a team comprising of three for each day of work starting tfrom morning around 8 o clock to 7 oclock in the evening. Agasti had taken the help of his younger brother and another village man to form the trio that was mandatory to work in the brickiln. The wage will be paid for the team only. The next time Agasti did not need the help of the third

partner in the team, as he had got married and brought his wife. His younger brother, wife and himself toiled in the brickiln to survive on the meager income. His older brother and his mother stayed back in the village, Tentenkhuuti in the Bolangir district of Orissa. This arrangement continued for several years as they would spend most of the year in the brickilns in Dindigal and during rainy season go back to their village for three months. This period also coincides with festivals for village Gods and Goddesses. Therefore to spend more money on the festivals, they would take advance from the contractors who hover around the villages that time. These contractors know that it was around now that the villagers would have pressing needs for more money. The money taken as advance would warrant that they have to return to the brickiln at the end of the period of stay. The cycle is set in motion again. In Agastis life too, the cycle repeatedly has come several full circles. The only change over a period of several years is that he could dispense with the services of his younger brother as Agastis son Dhina had grown up into a 10-year-old boy. With his nimble hands and feet quite ideal for clay ball making and mixing work, he was taken to be a qualified member of the threesome insisted on by the brickiln owner. Though their wage had now increased to 120 rupees, the advance taken also shot up, thereby canceling out the advantages of marginally increased wage. With Dhina joining them Agasti could take the teams wage all by himself. But it did not improve their lives any better. As the major portion of the money earned will be deducted for the advance collected, what will ultimately reach their hands would be some 200-250/- rupees per week. With this money the whole family has to survive the entire week. They cannot afford to eat nutritious food and have to make do with poultry feed, low quality rice and rejected piece of meat in the chicken and mutton stalls in the market. Dhina has grown up accepting this as absolutely normal. He has not seen the other side of the world. Hardly has he gone out of the brickiln area. The only other place he has gone is his village back in Orissa. Before becoming a labourer joining his family team, he was staying in his fathers elder brothers house and also in the custody of Agastis mother. Though he attended the school there, the constant movement between his uncles house and grandmothers house affected his studies. Thus,

even at the age of 10, he was going to second standard! After his grandmothers death some three years back, Dhina had to grow in his uncles house. But they themselves were struggling for survival; they could not care for him well. So, when Agasti went to his village on one of his usual annual visits, he brought his son to the brickiln area to stay with them. He knew very well that Dhina could act as the additional labourer they needed form the trio. In the past three years Dhina is with his parents. His playmates are children from the same community of brickiln workers. His playthings are brick and clay, as he is surrounded by it all along. The ease with his he maneuvers his ways through the harsh paths filled with pits and sand mounds, confirms his long period of stay amidst bricks and clay as well as his gradual absorption into the ways of life there. He has no other distraction except attending a school run by an NGO, but not fully. He returns form the school for lunch and does not return for the afternoon session. Instead he starts assisting his father, who has got the clay and water mixed up already for his son to come and tend it into malleable balls. Agasti himself does not have great deal of enthusiasm for his sons schooling. He believes that even those who had gone up to eighth and tenth classes have not got any work and finally returned to wage labour. Therefore he is remorseless about the fact that his son is not going to school in the afternoon. He has no plans to send him to a school away from here both resident and non-resident. His reluctance is the result of the fact that he is very fond of his only son, and wants to keep him at arms length. But yet, Agasti expects that the intelligence that would relieve his son from the drudgery of brickiln work should come from the life and experiences lived around here only. If it does not come, Agasti believe that Dhina may have to continue to engage in work like this forever in his life. On his part, Dhina is happy to be around his father. His parents care for him, though unable to give him good food. Dhina does not seem to care for the emancipating intelligence his father referring to, at least now. A life lived in the midst of bricks and clays may not produce a plurality of experiences necessary to generate that liberating wisdom. Even the short break that the family used to have in the form of visits back home in Orissa is not availed by Agasti these days since not much money has been

saved to spend back home. Also Agasti thinks that there is nothing back home to do anything productive. This time he decided to stay back in the brickilns and take up clay collection work, normally done by local labourers during the rainy season, when the brickiln workers have gone back to Orissa. This fetches him seventy rupees per day. His son and wife are not wanted in this work. Only Agasti goes for this work. This year, Dhinas world without brick and clay is impossible, as his parents do not plan to go back to Orissa. He cannot hope to have a day during which he would not wake up at the sight of bricks and vast open spaces dotted with mounted bricks everywhere. This may repeat in the next year too, as the debts seem to be mounting for Agasti and economic opportunities are becoming virtually nil back home in Orissa. Dhinas world is becoming more monocoloured than before. It is homogenized and filled with same sights and experiences of clay, red soil and brick. He may begin to spend more years of his formative phase of his life in the midst of this monolith. In the overwhelming redness of clay, sand and brick, he may never acquire that spectacular intelligence Agasti believes would rescue his son form poverty.