This I Believe - The Cleaning Lady

It was a cold March night in Manchester, New Hampshire. I was working through some mundane piece of code trying to get it to work, my head buried deep into the program. The only sound around me was the faint humming of the computers and the HVAC on the 16^th floor of that building which was my first office in the United States. It was the year 2000. It was the first time I was in the office past 7 PM and was determined to get the program working. That’s when I heard faint footsteps behind me. I knew there was nobody in the office at that hour and was a little nervous on realizing a possibility of another human being (hopefully) on the floor at that time – it was about 8:30 PM. I turned back and saw this stocky Hispanic woman of about 30 years walking into a cubicle next to mine and emptying the trash can. She lined the empty trash can with a new plastic bag and moved on to the next cubicle. It was for the first time that I found out who actually kept a clean trash can for me every morning when I walk into the office. She came into my cubicle and reached for the trash can under my desk without even acknowledging that there is a warm body sitting a couple of inches away. Her focus was on the trash can – she emptied the many candy wrappers, a coffee cup, some torn receipts and a half eaten apple. She lined the trash can with a new plastic bag in a mechanical motion which had the kind of efficiency which comes with experience. If she did not acknowledge me, I had the urge to do so, and mumbled a diffident ‘Thank you’ in the general direction of her. She lifted her gaze from the task at hand and gave me a faint smile. I smiled back and buried myself back in the program. She moved on to the next cubicle.

Over the years, I changed cities and offices, graduated from a cubicle to an office of my own, along with growing responsibilities, my contribution to the trash bin also grew. I started spending more and more of my evenings sitting in my office. Stress levels rose, and so did the coffee intake and the empty coffee cups. It will be ten years since that chance encounter in Manchester in March 2010. I imagine the amount of junk I created each and every workday (and some weekends). It would have probably filled up a football field if it wasn’t for the cleaning lady who cared to empty it every night without fail. It’s this vast silent army of cleaners and janitors which make the civilized world a livable place for those of us who produce trash in copious amounts. In a society where over consumption, excess and non-re-usability is the norm, it takes a lot of work from a lot of people to dispose off this junk to make room for more. It is quite a thankless job – they show up at times when the “creators” of the very trash they are removing, aren’t around. So it’s obvious for the ones who create it, to think that the trash disappears magically and the receptacle is clean and ready for them to pile it up with more junk.

I am not trying portray them as saints, and we, who create trash as devils - we are each doing our bit in this world. However, in most cases we get our due recognition and acknowledgement for the jobs we do, and we forget to pass it on to these individuals who work behind the scenes so that we can do our jobs efficiently. Hence, I believe it’s an ennobling thing that these individuals do on a daily basis for a menial amount of money and no recognition. We as a society will always want someone to pick up after us; we need them more than we need traffic lights, social networking websites or sliced bread. Since that evening in Manchester, I make it a point to thank each and every one of the cleaners or janitors whenever I run into them. Most of the times, I get surprised looks from them, some times I see a faint appreciation in their faint smiles (or it could be my imagination). Regardless, what I want to convey to them is that if it wasn’t for them, the entire world would be a big stinking trash can. Thank your cleaning person, thank them with all the sincerity and the respect they deserve. This I believe.

This I Believe - The Divine in the Book

The other day, I saw one of my colleagues use a pile of yellow pages as a stepping stool to reach to a cabinet which was beyond her reach. Words from my mother echoed within me:
"पुस्तकाला पाय लावायचा नाही. पुस्तकात विद्या असते, विद्येचा अपमान म्हणजे सरस्वतीचा अपमान. अणि पाय लागलाच तर पुस्तकाला नमस्कार करायचा".

Never touch a book with your feet, books have knowledge and by touching it with your feet you are insulting Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge)। If you accidentally happen to do so, you should bow to the book.

This was one of the earliest teachings received to me. It did not matter what the book was : a school text book, a notebook, a telephone directory, a weekly glossy, a comic book, a novel, a user manual, a Diwali ank (to the Marathi crowd - you know what I mean), etc. It did not matter, all you knew was you did not touch any published piece of work or any well bound stack of paper with your feet. There was no room for any "ifs" or "buts" there. It was firmly stamped in our psyche. If we accidentally did happen to even so much as carress a book with our feet, the immediate reflex action was to touch it with the right hand and do a little salutory action of then touching your forehead with the same hand. I am not a religious fella, but this one doctrine I have followed till date. Not for it's religious/cultural reasons anymore, but more for the spirtual reasons. In essence, I believe that the printed word in any book serves a purpose of rendering knowledge - no matter what knowledge - it could be about how to keep ones feet from smelling or building a bomb. Knowledge is power (and thus divine) - knowledge when used properly can lead to wisdom and wisdom when used wisely can lead to the betterment of the individual or a society or a nation or the planet.
So when I saw her using the yellow pages as a stepping stool, I felt the urge to share this belief with her and here on this blog. I do not expect or hope that she or anyone else follows this principle, afterall it's not about it being right or wrong, it's what you believe and what you don't. A book to me is sacred - regardless of its contents I would never,ever on purpose dare touch it with my feet - probably the two year old in me believes that there is a woman in white sitting on a swan playing her veena inside every book. This I Believe.

This I Believe - An Open Door

While reading some of the essays from the compilation of NPR's series "This I Believe", it was natural that I was stirred to think about my own beliefs. It does sound easy to know what you believe in and write about it in 300 words or less, however, it is quite a task. Peeling layers and layers of emotions, prejudices, experiences and thoughts is a daunting task. It's almost the equivalent of being naked...stark naked, mentally and identify those basic convictions which shapes one as a person. I was struggling to find at least one basic "belief" but was always optimistic that I will find it. I accidentally stumbled upon one such belief, this morning and thus my first essay for "This I Believe".

I believe in keeping the door of my home open, open to anyone who wants to come inside, anytime of the day or night. This, I attribute to my mother, to my father and the rest of my family - my grandparents, my two paternal uncles and aunts. I grew up in a joint family and real estate was always scarce. My grandfather would open the front door of our house at about 5 AM in the morning. From that early hour of the morning till about 11 PM or midnight, that door stayed open, it was always OPEN. Many guests, visitors, neighbors would stop by on a regular basis - some would have tea, breakfast, lunch, supper, dinner with us depending on the time of the day, completely uninvited. Some of them spent the night with us. Some out of town guests, relatives, friends would show at midnight, un-announced and they would be welcome with equal zest and complete openness. Someone from the family would fashion a quick meal from whatever was left-over and would make sure that the guest was well-fed and had a clean bed to sleep on.

There was never even a behind-the-door "Ohh why did they stop by now? I am so tired, I wish they won't stay until dinner!" reaction from anyone. I remember many nights when my mother would wake me and my brother up from deep sleep because some distant relative had arrived in the middle of the night with the entire family and planned to spend a week at our place (they always had some obscure wedding to attend ). Me and my brother would be tasked with ensuring that the kids were comfortable in our room, we would have to join our beds so that all of us could sleep together. There are many such incidents, my college friends have stayed in my house even when I wasn't around just because they were in town and wanted a place to crash, long lost ex-colleagues of my father have showed up after years of no contact and have spent a week with us, relatives of our neighbors have stayed with us because there was no room in our neighbor's house, neighbors from our past residences in other cities have showed up and stayed with us etc. I will have to agree that there were times when we (me and my brother) found this quite irksome and have expressed that in more than one ways to our parents. However, they continued and still continue with the "open door" policy. As a growing child and an adolescent, this physical and metaphorical "open door", sub-consciously had opened doors within me.

Today, after many years of leaving my house (seventeen to be precise), the only real thing that has left within me from that house is that "open door". This door is open to all, at all times - it is only natural, there is no other way I know of. This I Believe.