A green truck made its way through the empty and dimly lit street in the whey hours of the morning. The truck stopped at a dead end. Two orange-uniformed bodies hopped off the back to haul a massive garbage can into the back compartment of the garbage truck. The metallic collision made a clunking noise as the contents of the trash emptied into the truck. Two ungloved hands and unmasked faces tried to search for anything they could keep for themselves. One got hold of a tattered shirt and another a half-empty can of milk. The garbage can once back in its proper place, the uniformed bodies again hanging from the truck’s back , the truck got on with its journey. ..
Each time I stayed up late for no good reason and sat with my laptop near the living room window, I heard the audible “clunk” that told me about their arrival around 4 A.M. I’d cease whatever I was doing as my ears stood up to listen to anything that followed the clunk- sometimes silence, sometimes a hasty exchange of words in Bengali or Hindi, or sometimes just the starting up of the engine, indicating their work in my street was over. Even long after they left, I’d be left to ponder about the soul trapped behind that orange uniform. Did he dream of a Yamaha R1 bike? Did he ever desire of eating from Chilis or sipping on coffee from Starbucks? Did he ever want to buy himself shoes from Aldo? I just wondered and there it would be time for them to come again the next morning.
Each year during my traveling episodes from King Fahd International Airport, Dammam, I witnessed several “attention-catching” things. I saw groups of Sri Lankan and Indonesian maids, dressed in rather shabby and sub-standard clothes, smiles on their faces, a glint in their eyes as they boarded their flights back home. I saw clusters of Pakistani, Bengali and Indian laborers being shoved into lines under verbal lashes in Arabic, slurs shouted at them when they failed to understand the thick Arabic language. The look of fear and excitement on their faces was evident as they aligned themselves according to the commands of the airport staff. I saw a laborer carrying a lot of luggage- a television set, a radio, and large suit cases of clothes, hand bags, all bought from whole-sale stores that sold them at cheaper rates. He had dressed himself up in jeans and a tee-shirt, something he never normally wore during work. He had made himself look as happy and jubilant as possible, to mask up the ugliness of his life abroad. He didn’t want his family questioning and worrying about their only son, who had to shoulder the responsibilties of raising his wife and kids, and his unmarried siblings, and of course the ailing parents. His luggage seemed to telling a story of its own, nobody could have imagined that a simple sweeper in a government hospital would earn such a fortune to afford buying such things. But nobody knew that besides sweeping hospital wards how many cars he had washed, how many houses he had cleaned, how many hours overtime he had worked, how many months he had cut down his dinners to gather the amount he had so lavishly spent now just to raise his parents’ status back in his rural village. Really, nobody knew. Only he did.
Every year, all around the world, the lowest classes desperately apply to work abroad as laborers, janitors, maids, cleaning staff, and drivers. Each individual weary of his or her poverty-stricken circumstances and burdens. Every year, thousands of workers are “imported” to clean the streets, change diapers, sweep floors, drive around their masters, and build houses. And every year, many are abused, mistreated, and harassed, only because they look different, do different and are different. The newspapers are pouring with news of maids being sexually targeted, of drivers being questioned by the police on basis of some random suspicion and dying in police custody, stories of workers being beaten to death by their owners over asking a salary raise.
All this disgusts me. I cease to think we’re all human. Are we really? Binge-eating ourselves and starving our housekeepers? Spending a few hundred bucks on the latest fads while people around us sleep in lice-infested mattresses? So what if you have all the money in the world that you can actually go stashing people's mouth with 100 dollar bills? You are POOR if you have no HUMANITY, MORALS, and VIRTUES. It was just another hot summer afternoon on my way back to home, when I witnessed one of the most pathetic acts on the sidewalk. We were waiting at the red light and this Indian janitor was on his bicycle just on the other side of the road. He was parked near a Saudi's car and that Saudi backed up his car and threw the janitor off his bicycle. Instead of apologizing for his mistake, he goes on scolding the poor guy for being blind and not being at the right place. My heart went out to that poor Indian custodian, who tolerated the harsh comments and quietly picked up his 3-compartment stainless steel lunch box and rode off. How many times are we going to let this happen? Each day we have a million people who are oppressing or are oppressed by others! WHY? Is it really very necessary to exert your so-called "flawless aura" over another individual to prove your right to exist and dominate mankind? I don't think so. That Saudi should have realized that that Indian janitor, who he sees not even worth the trash he collects, actually contributes to keeping Saudi Arabia clean. What contributions is the Saudi dude making himself? Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
A long sigh, that’s all that comes up at the end. But why should the people who keep our roads clean, our rooms tidy, who sing lullabies to our kids, who prepare our meals and who carry our baggage be treated so ruthlessly? They are human too, they have blood and flesh too. They hurt, the way we do. They cry, they laugh, they have joys and tears, just like you and me. Then why? Why is it that the deserving ones are oppressed into silence? Why does the whole lot suffer due to a few black sheep? This “why” needs to be answered. The earlier, the better.
Blood can’t be equated to sweat.
But I have seen, blood turn to water,
As it flows from gashed veins,
To enrich the barren sands,
Of riches and galore.
And then as tears flow down my cheeks,
I’m often left to wonder,
Is being human only about having eyes and ears?
What good are eyes blind to crimes?
What good are ears deaf to cries?
We are all asleep.
We need to wake up.
Get up and hear the call,
Break those chains,
And end the pains,
Turns those losses into gains.
