The Cup Runneth Over

Licence to Live

Meet Mr. Mukherjee, a man in his mid-fifties, of a medium build and a fair complexion. He was said to have a business of his own of which I never asked him. I met Mr. Mukherjee, over five years ago, 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 the educational assistance since 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 or in a local municipal park….monsoon classes are left to your imagination and a feeling how fortunate we were and our children are. This is truly a street school.

Mr. Mukherjee would come to Prayas every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in an auto rickshaw. He carried with him two huge steel dabbas which were filled with khichdi which he would pick up from ISKCON, Juhu. The children would bring with them a tiffin box each and at the end of the class hours they would queue up while Mr. Mukherjee poured into each container a handful of hot fresh khichdi. The children relished the good food and then left for home thanking the teachers. There would be a little bit of khichdi left behind every day in the dabbas which went to the woman who washed the utensils. She has three small kids and this would be one good meal for her family as well.

Talking to Mr. Mukherjee, who was fondly called the Dabbawalla and had a permanent smile on his glowing face, I came to know of the concept of Licence to Live. He said that every morning when he woke up, the first thing he did was to take a handful of bajra and put it in the small bowl kept on the window ledge. This bajra was for the birds that come during the day in search of food. Our Dabbawalla said that by doing this every morning he felt he had earned his licence to live for the day.

If life is a journey and driving on the road needs a valid driving licence, Mr. Mukherjee believed, he needed to renew his licence to live each day. 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 every day. The Dabbawalla firmly believed that what he did for people beyond his own family brought him good fortune, the fortune of a smile from a stranger somewhere which he felt kept him going. Six months ago Mr. Mukherjee, went off on his eternal journey but his one thought left a huge impression on my mind and I often ask myself, “Have I renewed my licence to live today?

Proof of Life

Thimmakka was born in Tumkur District of Karnataka. She had received no formal education and worked as casual labourer in a quarry. She was married to Chikkaiah and the couple could not have children. She and her husband started grafting saplings from the banyan trees which were in the vicinity of their village. In the first year they planted ten saplings along a distance of five kilometers near the neighbouring village of Kudur. The next year fifteen saplings were planted and in the third year twenty. The couple would carry four pails of water over a distance of four kilometers to water the saplings and also protected them from the cattle by putting up fences of thorny shrubs.

Today, anyone driving from Kudur to Hallika, a distance of 3 kilometres, will find himself under a beautiful green canopy of tall trees. Thimmakka’s efforts not only earned her domestic and global recognition including Padma Shri in 2019 but having done something good not just for herself but for others and future generations gives the centenarian lady the greatest joy. She has been given the name of Saalumarada which means ‘rows of trees’.

“I planted 1,000 saplings then, and save a few, all of them have grown to be strong trees. They are like my own children,” says a smiling Thimmakka. “As we were unable to have our own children, we thought we should leave something behind as our memory. What better than plant trees that could give shelter to humans, birds and animals?”

Last line: In a time when life is endangered and most of us are hiding in the safety of our homes, we need to ask if we are doing anything for others to earn our license to live and leave behind the proof of life….and it does not take too much education or money to do it.

SS