Dance of life

Forget dancers who balance pots on their heads. Have you seen the
brick man go abouthis daily grind
On a construction site where bricks are carefully stacked, I saw a
brick man who was tidying them up even further, beautifully
symmetrical layering , reminding me of the time when we gave our
children wooden blocks to play with, andmake houses. One of the early
domestic workers who worked with us used to call the play things murgi
ghar.
Then to my sheer amazement this lean man with a sleeveless banyan, and
a kind of short pants with a towel around it, like the kerala style of
wearing a dhoti, put a flat piece of old rusted metal on his head,
overa turban made of a dirty towel and balancing himself like
akuchipudi dancer, tooktwo bricks at a time with his two arms,
heldwide open, and did an extraordinary pile on the tray on his head –
two inside and then two outside. Then another two inside, and then
with two arms taking up two on either side, another set.Like this it
went on till he had four layers of four bricks each and then finally
balancing himself and always with head erect, he took two more and
carefully raising his arms put them on top of the 16 – like a mantapam
on his head,all the while straight backed, with only knees bending and
arms totally in balance.
In perfect balance
Then he walked across the road, in delicate perfect balance, and
climbed up several steps created out of bamboo to the third floor of
this house under construction, putthem down and came back again for
more.
He could have been one of the dancers whom we see in Rajasthan with
six or seven pots balanced ontheir head swinging to the amazement and
applause of tourists. Or the kuchipudi dancers who balance pots and
also dance with their feet in large thalis . An achievement of
balance, we would think! We would then pay to watch the dancers and
their skills.The brick man had no such audience. Watching him and his
extraordinary balancing act were four 'supervisor' type men sitting on
plastic chairs talking to each other.
My brick man would bea perfect candidate for being included in the
Kalakshetra dancing school, where balance is the fundamental
principle, back straight,a straight line from the back of the head to
theback of the feet, is the ultimate as the famous dancer and teacher,
Prof Chandrasekhar explained during one of his lectures at Rabindra
Bhavan. I could almost see him move in graceful natya , balancing two
diyas on outstretched palms, with a pot on his head - totally relaxed.
Alas, no such luck for my brick man…
I presumed, knowing a little about wage fixation, that he would be
paid per square metre of the bricks thathe carried and not by the
number of trips that he made, like the best of dancers. This is of
course, not 'breaking news' in countries like India – we have seen
similar scenarios in Africa, unrecognised physically punishing labour
with gross inequality and lack of recognition of value. We also know
that the option of mechanising that task, or upgrading its physical
punishment, by let us say, giving him a wheelbarrow to pile his
bricks, or a donkey with two packs on its back would probably deprive
him of his wage, as someone else would be willing to do that,
displacing this 'lowest of the low' worker of his livelihood. The
dilemma is deeply entrenched in countries like ours, where wage led,
employment-led growth is not the mantra and where poverty and
inequality and unemployment rage. I continue to watch my elegant
delicate brick man, helplessly, from my balcony as he dances across
the street.