LICENSE TO LIVE

You’ve all heard of the illustrious Sens…from Sun Yat Sen to Mian Tansen, from Mrinal Sen to Amartya Sen. This is not about them at all. It’s about us three- Mama Sen, Papa Sen and Docky Sen. All of us write and have styles of our own. But since we do not write too often, just decided to club the writings. We will write about experiences of life, of people we know, we meet, of happiness and sadness, of fantasy and spirituality…almost everything.

LICENCE TO LIVE

Meet Mr. Mukherjee, a man in his mid-fifties, medium built and fair. He is said to have a business of his own of which I have never asked him any more. I meet Mr. Mukherjee on my infrequent visits to Prayas, an NGO that works for educating 300 odd slum children. The children go to municipal schools but Prayas gives them educational assistance which they do not find anyone to help them at home. There are no rooms where the children study but they sit under the open sky outside shops which have not yet opened, on mats….monsoon classes are left to your imagination and feeling how fortunate we were and our children are. This is truly a street school.

Mr. Mukherjee comes to Prayas every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in an auto rickshaw. He carries with him 2 huge steel dabbas which are filled with khichdi he picks up from ISCON, Juhu. The children bring with them a tiffin box each and at the end of the class, stand in a queue where Mr. Mukherjee pours a handful of hot fresh khichdi. The children relish the good food and leave for home thanking the teachers. There is a little bit of khichdi left behind every day in the dabbas which goes to the woman who washes the utensils. She has three small kids and this is one good meal for the family as well.

Talking to Mr. Mukherjee today who is fondly called the Dabbawalla and has a constant smile on his face, I came to know of the concept of License to Live. He says every morning when he wakes up, the first thing he does is to take a handful of bajra and puts it in the small bowl kept of the window ledge. This bajra is for the birds who come during the day to eat. Our Dabbawalla said when he does this one act he feels he has earned his license to live for the day.

If life is a journey and driving on the road needs a valid driving license, Mr. Mukherjee believes he needs to renew his license to live everyday. Life is all about giving and sharing. We are fortunate to have a good life and each one of us can do a bit of good everyday. The Dabbawalla firmly believes that what he does for people beyond his own family brings him good fortune, fortune of a smile of a stranger somewhere which he feels keeps him going.

Have you renewed you Licence to Live today?

SS