Meeting Idris

I met Idris in the hutments across Sector 28 in Gandhinagar. This is a slum I pass frequently, for the villages where I have been working for many years are beyond them. Today, and for many years they have been out of work, going and standing at the chowki to be picked up as daily labourers. In spite of being across the road from the Gujarat Electricity Board, there are no lights. No toilets. No water connections. Enough dust to make us choke.
After speaking with a group of a hundred people i saw a young man chewing tobacco. I went up to him and said that cancer wasn’t worth the relief that the chewing provided. I offered to take him to the cancer museum that the Civil Hospital runs — after the election. Another young man was talking about the lack of jobs. I am a driver he said, but I have had no work for years. I turned and asked if he had a valid license. Yes, I was told. Then give me your
phone number as I need chauffeurs fro the campaign, I told him. “When you hear my name, you won’t want me. I am a Muslim”. “It makes no difference to me” I said. He burst into tears. “I have lost forty jobs in three years because I am called Idris”. He has joined the campaign
and is also a fantastic drummer. At this moment he is dressing to dance in the “Mallikabenno Sannedo”!