largest slum in Asia.
We were in a yellow-and-black taxi, and moving slowly: sunlight and crowd and hooter-din, the hot exhausts of buses billowing black, grit resting on the skin. And then, in the middle of this, a glimpse of purity: a group of thin young boys in white loincloths, walking fast on the other side of the road.
The boys were Jains, Papu said,
munis
, aspirants to the religious life, and they would have been the disciples of a guru. Munis didn’t have a fixed abode; they were required to move about from place to place and to live off charity. There were places attached to temples where they might spend a night; they asked at Jain houses for their food.
How would they know that a house was a Jain house?
‘Normally there is a board at the entrance, or an emblem of some sort, or some kind of tile. Nowadays you can even getstickers. But usually there is an attendant with the young munis. He takes them round and shows them the houses. It is said that the purpose of this discipline is to control the ego. In Jainism knowledge is very important. A brahmin is supposed to be the most intellectual person; he is the person to whom everyone listens. It is to become someone like that that the munis go around asking for their food. To gain knowledge, they have first to keep the ego under control.’
But the rituals and traditions came from a more pastoral time. Did they serve their purpose when they were acted out now in the streets of Bombay?
Papu’s attitude was that rituals had to be constantly adapted. Jains, for instance, were supposed to bathe every morning and walk barefooted in an unstitched garment to the temple. In Bombay many Jains could still do that; Papu’s mother did it in the suburb where she and Papu lived. But Papu himself couldn’t do it. He might walk to the temple after his bath, but he couldn’t walk barefooted and he couldn’t go in an unstitched cloth, because nowadays he went to the temple on his way to work.
I told him about my visit to the Muslim area and my talk with Anwar.
He said, ‘The aggression can be made creative. We used to play basketball with a Muslim team from that area. The aggression of the young Muslim boys made them good basketball players. It gave them the killer instinct.’ The killer instinct which Papu saw in the Indian industrialist, but which traders like himself didn’t yet have. ‘If I hit them, they hit back. And they play to win. Whereas I come back home satisfied with a good game. If they hit me, I wouldn’t hit back. I suppose I might complain, that’s all.’
He talked again about his wish to retire at forty to do social work. I knew, from what he had said before, that he had doubts about the idea, doubts especially about the possible waste of his God-given talent, which, if properly used, might produce more funds for his welfare work. Now – sitting in the taxi, in the dust and afternoon glare, at the end of his working day – doubts seemed to have taken him over and enervated him. He wasn’t even sure about the social work he was doing on Sundays among people of the slum in his area.
‘Every Sunday a group of us, mainly Jains, feed the slum people. We feed perhaps 500 of them. We start at about 10.30 in themorning. For many of the people we are feeding it may be the only big meal in the week. It may keep them going. I am doing it to help them – there can be no doubt about that. But there is also in me a feeling of relief from the guilt which I always have. Whatever I do for them, I know there are limitations. Perhaps I should try to help them to help themselves. My father’s idea about this was: “I would like to teach them fishing, and not give them fish.” If I’m giving them a square meal, it ends there. What I think I would like – even if it means helping only five kids rather than 500 – is that the five I help should be able to make a living.’
He was obsessed by the idea of charity, of what he, with his blessings, might do for
We were in a yellow-and-black taxi, and moving slowly: sunlight and crowd and hooter-din, the hot exhausts of buses billowing black, grit resting on the skin. And then, in the middle of this, a glimpse of purity: a group of thin young boys in white loincloths, walking fast on the other side of the road.
The boys were Jains, Papu said,
munis
, aspirants to the religious life, and they would have been the disciples of a guru. Munis didn’t have a fixed abode; they were required to move about from place to place and to live off charity. There were places attached to temples where they might spend a night; they asked at Jain houses for their food.
How would they know that a house was a Jain house?
‘Normally there is a board at the entrance, or an emblem of some sort, or some kind of tile. Nowadays you can even getstickers. But usually there is an attendant with the young munis. He takes them round and shows them the houses. It is said that the purpose of this discipline is to control the ego. In Jainism knowledge is very important. A brahmin is supposed to be the most intellectual person; he is the person to whom everyone listens. It is to become someone like that that the munis go around asking for their food. To gain knowledge, they have first to keep the ego under control.’
But the rituals and traditions came from a more pastoral time. Did they serve their purpose when they were acted out now in the streets of Bombay?
Papu’s attitude was that rituals had to be constantly adapted. Jains, for instance, were supposed to bathe every morning and walk barefooted in an unstitched garment to the temple. In Bombay many Jains could still do that; Papu’s mother did it in the suburb where she and Papu lived. But Papu himself couldn’t do it. He might walk to the temple after his bath, but he couldn’t walk barefooted and he couldn’t go in an unstitched cloth, because nowadays he went to the temple on his way to work.
I told him about my visit to the Muslim area and my talk with Anwar.
He said, ‘The aggression can be made creative. We used to play basketball with a Muslim team from that area. The aggression of the young Muslim boys made them good basketball players. It gave them the killer instinct.’ The killer instinct which Papu saw in the Indian industrialist, but which traders like himself didn’t yet have. ‘If I hit them, they hit back. And they play to win. Whereas I come back home satisfied with a good game. If they hit me, I wouldn’t hit back. I suppose I might complain, that’s all.’
He talked again about his wish to retire at forty to do social work. I knew, from what he had said before, that he had doubts about the idea, doubts especially about the possible waste of his God-given talent, which, if properly used, might produce more funds for his welfare work. Now – sitting in the taxi, in the dust and afternoon glare, at the end of his working day – doubts seemed to have taken him over and enervated him. He wasn’t even sure about the social work he was doing on Sundays among people of the slum in his area.
‘Every Sunday a group of us, mainly Jains, feed the slum people. We feed perhaps 500 of them. We start at about 10.30 in themorning. For many of the people we are feeding it may be the only big meal in the week. It may keep them going. I am doing it to help them – there can be no doubt about that. But there is also in me a feeling of relief from the guilt which I always have. Whatever I do for them, I know there are limitations. Perhaps I should try to help them to help themselves. My father’s idea about this was: “I would like to teach them fishing, and not give them fish.” If I’m giving them a square meal, it ends there. What I think I would like – even if it means helping only five kids rather than 500 – is that the five I help should be able to make a living.’
He was obsessed by the idea of charity, of what he, with his blessings, might do for
Similar Books
