munir / mustaq

so, if you guys don’t know there is carpentry work going on in my house. my room is getting a makeover as the enormous dark wardrobe finally gets replaced by a slimmer sexier one and a shelf is made for the music system/ computer and book shelves are made. mustaq seems to be handling all of this almost single-handedly. he is here at 8 and works all day without food or water (it is the month of ramzan) and leaves to break his fast at around 5.

munir and mustaq live together in a flat at bandra. munir is the senior boss man (though he is younger than mustaq) who has a flat at bharat nagar in bandra kurla complex and another small room where he keeps his men. mustaq gets to live with munir because he is his cousin. while mustaq is married with kids, munir is still looking ( i assume). while munir is genial, portly and is smiling perpetually, mustaq is lean muscular and seems to have a defiant scowl on his face. i like them both and admire them too. they both arrived here from rural west bengal looking for work and are doing really well for themselves. theirs is a classic story of migrants into the city and the opportunities it provides to serious hard workers. munir is to sell his flat to a builder for a crore soon. maybe he will hire me to do his interiors. :)

yesterday while anand and me were watching ‘amar akbar anthony’, mustaq finished his work early and walked into the living room only to stand and start watching the film with us. until i told him to sit down he continued to stand. then he sat perched on the edge of the bed and looked really uncomfortable. when i told him to sit back and relax, he looked at me quizzically and asked “how much can i relax?” or “kitne aaram se baithu?” - like he needed my permission to sit comfortably, like his body was meant to be seen as out of place and it was a code he considered to be unfair but behaved himself according to; like he was perpetually conscious of the way in which he is seen- like he was not really human- almost animal- as poor, as muslim, as of a lower caste; like there is no way to escape class and maybe me in my ridiculous way had insulted him or patronized him by asking him to pretend that the difference did not exist.

had i?

i hope not.

he did sit back then and relax and did see the film with us right up to the very end.