Digjit's legs were as usual over my hips as we lay in a single mattress like coiled serpents. I couldn't turn because I know he is a light sleeper and he had a tough day , like always. I am Rinku and I live in a humble 1bhk room in a very busy shopping hub part of Chennai . We are from the other end of the country and like other hopeful nomads looking to make a decent living, we decided to explore the subcontinent. The cultural vibrancy of the South , the smorgasbord of festivities attracted us to make a living there by selling gift and utility articles. Life was , mostly vague in my childhood as I just remember financial troubles, bouts of aggression all through my schooling days to break even. We were 3 brothers over all with an age gap of 1-2 years between us. Sometimes the rawness of the hipster lifestyle , the grit to survive behind all odds , pushes one to throw caution to the wind and live life as is without worrying about repercussions. Most of us ( from my neighborhood ) didn't have proper education given our financial situation. We had the occasional visit of a visiting politician for photo ops who used to target areas like us, a few months before elections to give us rice bags and soon-to-expire grocery kits. Our uncleaned teeth and torn clothes , yet a full smiling ignorant face would be on the regional news papers the next day to show the "generous" leader's philanthropic efforts. Adolescence was mostly about finding a girl to spend happy times with and I was with a girl Minty. Minty and we used to hangout during the day selling gypsy necklaces and putting henna on girls . I am a good artist. By night we used to spend time as a couple madly in love and the day repeated. Until one day, Minty left me suddenly without caution or warning and I took to recreational drugs to cope up with the sudden change in my life. Digjit entered at that juncture and offered the much needed comfort I didn't know I ached for . We started looking out for each other and spent most of the day trying to sell utilities such as bed sheets and 3d hologram printed photos .We had to sign a letter with the local Marwari Businessmen , using our thumbprint saying if we ever stole the goods to be sold, we can be willingly arrested without trial or a lawyer . With that iron shackle around our necks , we got the articles to be sold for that day and roamed all through the streets speaking in our broken regional language , trying to persuade itchy hands that wanted to spend money on something just for the heck of it.
Digjit or Diggu , like I started calling him, got close to me. We never bothered to ask questions about each other's personal life or our journey thus far and simply started living together like hostel buddies. We slept together, showered together due to water troubles, shared our lunches and took turns to skip dinner every alternate day to not overspend. Luckily we had moderate appetite and didn't suffer from hunger - the one recognized boon I had. If I also had to endure hunger, as I scraped the barrel for a living , Life would have ended a lot sooner for me. Some days life used to be kind on us, especially during festive occasions as the crowd had a more spending mood. We mostly target the ones with kids, as they are the weakest links and easy to trigger the man of the family into spending money just to avoid the ruckus of a baby with tantrum. Once during Diwali , we sold a lot more goods than we anticipated , so much so that we had to quickly run back to the shed to restock and do a 2nd round. The extra money we made, we decided split it in half , one for spending on food and the other in a metal box we used to hide our savings. Once, Diggu had to take a different route and didn't meet me for a long time and I started getting jittery. I was quoting lesser prices that day on my goods to sell faster as I could roam about to search for him only If I sold all my allocated portion. We had just one basic phone and we were out of money to recharge it. I sold my goods, rushed to our room to find 100/- Rs lesser in our tin box. We made it a habit to periodically check the savings can for fear of other desperate characters in our area. I began to brush aside a very disturbing thought of Diggu cheating on me by looting our savings in smaller portions and began to palpitate. I can't afford a 2nd heartbreak in the same year. I was hungry due to the emotions and started doing something I never consciously did - beg for food. I started standing near tea stalls and smaller outlets where they sold buns and biscuits , extending an outstretched hand from a body that lost most of its honor in keeping itself alive. I was aware because I had questionable look due to my unkempt hair, brown teeth from the repeated chewing of gutka/pan , I wasn't turning heads. People mostly thought I was a lazy ass drug addict not worth getting mercy on the grounds of poverty. I even thought of harming myself physically to become a handicap , because that had more success rate but decided against it . I managed to get a cup of tea and some biscuits from some young kids, who appeared to be living a carefree life . With that meal, I began to search for Diggu, when I found him returning slowly , from a street with a strange look on his face.
I was struggling from within, fighting my intrusive demons to not interrogate him on what he did with the missing money . I was , truth be told , just a prick away from bursting into emotions, as It was a mix of anger, disappointment , self pity and hopelessness. Diggu gestured me to follow him into a street with lesser crowd and turned to look at me . He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and I suddenly began to worry if he had got hurt. Then he showed me. The idiot had spent the money to tattoo my name across his chest with a small heart . I slapped him hard and kissed his forehead and hugged him tight in a rush of relief and love. I was relieved beyond words that I wasn't duped by yet another person in my life, and they in fact chose to get closer to me in so many ways. I didn't let go of his hand , like I held on to dear life. In fact , from that day, whenever we spent time together, I never let go of his hand , so much so that funnily our palms might be sharing a common lifeline. Sometimes we were bullied by homophobic people who outrageously misinterpreted our deep friendship as superficial gay attraction. They used to throw half burnt cigarettes, or spit in front of us saying what I believe are racial slurs . We however, didn't bother and continued to live our life undeterred by life's struggles that kept coming our way. For example, one day he developed high fever and didn't get up from bed for 2 days. He lost appetite and became weak and I wasn't able to buy much medicines as our businessmen masters dismissed our honest pleas as 'a well rehearsed stage' act to get more money. It was times like those I really , from the core of my heart regretted being alive and poor. I didn't eat my portion of the food and began to nurse him , as I wanted to ensure he recovered soon . I can't lose him. If something happened to him, I made a decision to quit life in full. But with time, and due to our rugged lifestyle . we have an unexplained immunity to harsh weather and common diseases, Diggu recovered and began to walk slowly. Within a week he was alright and we decided to shift neighborhood.
We packed our camp and went to the business folks saying we want to leave - we couldn't just elope as they had a signed letter that might ruin our life if we didn't destroy it. So , we spoke to them that we wanted to change areas and for that letter to be destroyed. They made us plead, tried persuading us with Rs 100 more income per 2 weeks and such , but we just felt we were done with the place. After spending the whole day pleading and waiting, they threw some money at our face and asked us to never show ourselves to them again . We took the littered cash and began looking for camps for the deprived and needy. We were fairly young and healthy, with a combined knack of sales and artistry . Between the two of us, Diggu looked a bit more handsome than me, so if we suspected we can use his looks to get an entry into some opportunity. We were successful sometimes, with that strategy and managed to get some menial jobs until one day when a useless piece of junk of a guy asked Diggu , what was his night rate. Diggu slapped that guy with his sandal and I took an oath that I will never put him through another day like this, for which he jokingly replied , "Is it your fault for me being handsome , you bellend". You will be surprised to see how many flavors of evil run through humanity.
We passed a few months like that moving from one job to another, but with a bit more food and money in our packets. We decided to cut back on recreational drugs, as life seemed to slowly offer a glimmer of hope that it might be actually getting better . After 6 months, we came back to the same neighborhood but carefully avoided the businessmen. We entered a super store, that had 'We need people' board out there and we fit the category. We spoke with confidence and a unique sense of honor in our mannerism and the Sales manager was happy to give us both a 24 hour sales boy / house keeping job in the super store. We were given shelter in a nearby building which looked like a prison for captured non-convicts. 5 of us shared a room and of course Diggu and me were still together. We built our life from then on , humbled by the dawn of mercy in our lives and slowly began to evolve into decent humans. Its been a year since and as I look back, at my journey till now, the 2 things that kept me going was Diggu and my own search for Life in general. I was inadvertently seeking what Life really had in store for me and I kept moving ahead until I found an answer.
My sincere request to you is that, the next time you see some of our kind on the streets , judge us less and help us more. Yes, we make some questionable coping choices and we strongly look out for each other , sometimes resorting into cheating by quoting higher prices on our goods or commit actual theft in worst cases, but you must understand rationally why we even do that. Do you think we don't suffer from the guilt or the regret of our choices ? We keep delaying the prick of conscience, until we were strong enough to confront our demons. If you weren't of the mind of helping us, at least don't scorn at us or pass lewd comments. If you really wanted to help us, buy something from us or use our services , at least that gives us a sense of being wanted, useful and respect that we can actually do something. If you have the capacity to help us in long term, spend sometime talking with us, earn our trust and help us get through life. Because, people like us who are desperate, will even die for people who cared enough to help us out of love and divine kindness. We are perhaps more loyal than dogs, to the people who help us , support us. I am not saying we will always be servants or slaves, I mean to say, we will guard your place like Putin's bodyguards if you gave us a security guard job. We will accompany your kids to school and back ensuring their safety. We will drive and maintain your cars in excellent condition. But to reach to that level, we need people who cared enough and trusted us a bit more to actually understand us better. Be kind , for you don't know why you actually are more blessed in life in this birth , like how I don't know why people like us got the short end of the bargain. Perhaps , we deserved it for our past deeds. Imagine, if by your gifts, you extended a bit of support, how much it might amplify your goodwill score ? It might even help you if you took another round of existence as a human . Be kind. Live and let live....Thanks for reading my story.
