VOLUNTEERING, LOCKDOWN AND ZZZ
Ajit Chaudhuri – June 2020
According to The
Economist[1], the COVID-induced
lockdown has divided the world into three Zs. There are those working from home
on full pay using internet-based communication, the Zoomers, who have to deal
with the trials and tribulations of boredom. Those with zero-hour contracts as
small businessmen, labourers, and informally employed service providers are the
Zeros and in deep shit. And then there is Gen Z, with tanked higher education
and employment prospects, also in deep shit. My own situation (thus far) as per
this categorization is thankfully the first, and I decided to alleviate the boredom
by stepping out and doing some voluntary work.
I got an opportunity
with a citizen-organized food delivery initiative called ‘Khaana Chahiye’,
which prepared hot meals and provided them a) at stations to migrants leaving
the city by train, b) at slums to those living without work and c) on the road
to pavement dwellers and itinerants. I came to know of the initiative through a
colleague and spent an evening at a railway station as an observer before
applying to be a volunteer on its website. By the time I came on board
(mid-May) it was very well organized (having begun in March), so I just needed
to slot in and get to work.
So, what did I do? I spent two weeks going to a restaurant in Bandra,
loading 3,200 hot meals on to a BEST bus designated for this purpose, picking
up my supervisor at Vile Parle, and then heading onwards to Dahisar via points
in Jogeshwari, Borivli, Malwani, Malad, etc. handing over a specified number of
meals to contact persons at pre-arranged locations. We took the occasional
detour; once we had some crates of gulab jamuns that we delivered to
orphanages in and around Andheri after our regular route, another when we
stopped to take a COVID test (more about this later).
Should I have done
so? Well, maybe not, for
various reasons! One, I am on a ‘work-from-home’ because it is unsafe to be
out. Two, I was out for most of the working day (when I was supposed to be at home
working). And three, I am at a vulnerable age, and I had my Mother-in-law at
home those days (I lied about both in my selection interview). But, it took me
out after two months stuck in a closed space with wife and Ma-in-law. And, my
own city was (is) facing its biggest crisis in living memory, and I was not
going to respond to the question ‘what did you do during the lockdown?’ with an
‘I was a good boy! I stayed at home and did my work.’ No way!!
How was it? On the good side, pretty good fun! My key learnings
were –
One – I finally got to
see Mumbai’s suburbs! There was an old joke at the time of India’s moon
mission, in which the Mumbaikar issues ISRO a challenge – let’s see who reaches
first, you to the moon or me to Andheri East. With no traffic, I discovered
that Bandra was 15 minutes away and getting to Andheri East was merely another 30.
To my shock, the burbs were both civilized and worth seeing. I am no longer
intimidated by the prospect of stepping beyond my corner of the city.
Two – I managed to
suppress some ideological issues! First, I am not a believer in providing food
to people-in-need. My own experience suggests a) that food is akin to opium in
creating dependency, b) that it delays recovery and c) that it diverts policy
makers from the need to sort out the public distribution system (wherein basic
services such as food are provided as a right rather than a handout). And here
I was, in a system with clear demarcation between ‘givers’ and ‘receivers’. I
consoled myself by staying at the back of the bus and managing inventory, and
by knowing that the receivers themselves had the impression that this was
partially a municipal programme rather than a pure charity because of the BEST
bus that we travelled in.
And second, while the
initiative itself was non-political, my supervisor was a BJP member and I think
also RSS (i.e. the opposite end of the political and ideological spectrum from
me). He was in his late thirties, had been on my route from when it began in
March, and he was brilliant. He knew every location and every contact
personally on this complicated and diverse route that touched many difficult areas,
he was kind and patient in his dealings with everybody, and he was trusted
implicitly all along the route. He would speak Marathi with the Marathis,
Gujarati with the Gujaratis, Hindi with migrants from the north, and Urdu in
the minority dominated areas. At no time were his ideological or political
leanings on display – on the contrary, he was free in his abuse of the
government and the effects of its COVID policies on his ice-cream business. His
only discernable bias was his refusal to give food to drunkards – one drop-off
point was near a liquor shop and we were often approached by people in the
booze-line. Needless to add, we became good friends!
Three – I saw the
limits to technology! The organizers had initially planned to send the food out
with a driver armed with the location of the drop-off points on Google Maps and
the phone numbers of the respective point-of-contacts. The ensuing chaos resulted
in a steep learning curve, with things changing to ensure that there was a
volunteer on every bus who was responsible for delivery, was a face of the
initiative to the beneficiary, and was available for feedback and requisitions
on future needs and requirements. We got to know the importance of the bananas
and biscuits we provided in addition to the meals (they were kept by children
for next morning’s breakfast), or that the Don Bosco orphanage could absorb any
amount of meals (it had young boys for whom no quantity of food was sufficient
– so we made it our last stop in which its own quota and any additional stuff
could be offloaded) by virtue of our presence at transactions and our
conversations with the beneficiaries.
Four – life was good at
the bottom of the chain! I had the luxury of being a grunt – I merely had to
land up, hang around, load, unload, and shift meals from one sack to another,
etc., some of it on a moving bus, and then go home. No stress about whether the
food or the bus would arrive, or any other coordination/management related
matter – others did all that. In the process, I got time to look around and
absorb things. Like the efficiency of operations (hot food moving from being a
set of ingredients to filling a hungry person’s stomach, every day, in numbers,
changing for the requirement of the day, all the work done by volunteers!). Or
the happiness with which my bus driver drove on the city’s empty roads – he had
spent 45 days in lockdown before being called up and was thrilled to be out. Or
the integrity with which the recipients reduced their requirements as time
passed.
And five, I met new and
inspiring people! Mumbai to migrants like me is a strange place – Mumbaikars
are pleasant and orderly but also highly transactional in their interactions (and
I sorely miss Delhi’s large-heartedness). It was good to know that there are people
in this city who put self-interest on low priority during a crisis and refuse
to let lockdown restrictions and health risks get in the way of doing things
that need to be done. The initiative was organized by a group of restauranteurs
without restaurants (due to the lockdown) – they saw that people needed food
and opened their kitchens to make it available. My co-volunteers were mostly people
who had been upended by the pandemic; my supervisor ran four ice-cream
parlours, another guy owned an event management agency, a lady had just
finished her teaching contract with an NGO and her plans for higher education
were on hold, etc. People who were screwed, and who stepped out to do something
for others rather than hide in their homes and wallow in misery. It was an
honour to meet every one of them!
Not everything was
great, though! The law of averages duly applied and a co-volunteer, who had
spent a day on the bus with me, tested positive for COVID. I did ten days in self-quarantine,
worried sick that if I had something my Ma-in-law would get it as well. I
didn’t, she didn’t and my marriage, I think (and hope), survives!!
I came back to my
food-route after quarantine and found that things had changed for the better. Traffic
was out on the roads again, that ghost-town feeling was gone, and the need for
cooked food had reduced considerably with people getting back on their feet.
Within a few days, ‘Khaana Chahiye’ correctly decided to close the route, and I
got back to doing what I was supposed to – working from home.
I would like to
conclude with the saying ‘if you can’t be a good example, you should at least be
a horrible warning!’ I’m not sure where I stand in this spectrum!
