This March 8th, our friends teamed up and invited each other to name “the woman I admire most”. Sure enough a majority ended up naming Mother Theresa or their own mom, some one named her daughter and one even her daughter in law (wise indeed!). I sat rummaging to announce a really outrageous name such as Madonna, Naomi Campbell or Silk Smitha. Actually I really admire their beauty and their boldness at flaunting it. I didn’t want to startle the ladies away, so I began thinking of some other name. Perhaps, my name? But that would make me look like a Narcissus. So while scanning my memory for a more sedate name, in a moment of serious thought, the face of “Gangamma ” flashed through my mind. So I decided to talk about this Gangamma as the woman I admired most. Who is this Gangamma? To explain that I need to take you some thirty years back.
I was then beginning my college studies in a small town where we lived. My house was in the suburbs of the town and I had to travel by bus to reach my college which was in the other extreme end of the town. The suburbs could have their individual septic tank for waste disposal. But within the town area as the infrastructural facilities such was sewerage treatment plants were yet to be developed, the practice of collecting night soil was prevalent in the town area. A group of sanitary workers will visit the privy of each house and collect the night soil and cart it off into a bullock cart. While this activity was going on the whole street will stink to heaven and hell. In fact we used to avoid using the street when we spotted the cart at the street end.
The sanitary workers will chatter among themselves, fight and argue a lot loudly and spew the betel nut juice all over the street. But one lady stood out in this crowd. She was always neatly dressed in plain blue sari with a white blouse. Her hair was well oiled, neatly combed and collected in a bun at the back of her neck. I have never seen her chew betel nut or argue with the others. She would silently do her job with a blank face. She fascinated me a lot.
As I have pointed out in my earlier blog, we used to visit a slum to do social service. Among the row of house wallowing in filth and dirt, one hut stood out. It was a small mud hut with a thatched roof. The wall was well white washed and sparkling in the sun. In front of the house, button roses planted in old buckets and battery containers were in full bloom adding beauty to the place. There was a small wooden plank doubling up for a door, but the doorway was well swept and cleaned with cow dung. The white kolam neatly drawn gave an almost holy appearance. Interested at this neatness amidst such poverty, I made my way to the house and looked inside. It was quite dark . I entered and found it cool. After some time my eyes got acclimatized to the darkness and I noticed that the house was clean, the floor was mopped with cow dung. There was a small shelf and the few copper vessels were so well washed they almost looked new. I peered with interest and there stood Gangamma smiling and inviting us to sit down. She was the sanitary worker I had noticed earlier. It was only during this meeting she gave me her name. when I remarked about her neatness she thought over for some time and with a tinge of regret in her voice said “ My job is afterall to clean things, Right?”. Well she had a point there. It is not known if Gangaamma liked her job or not but it was evident that fate had dealt her such a hard blow and created her as a sanitary worker, but she won over fate with her invincible spirit by keeping herself and her home so impeccably clean.
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