A menu scraped from the dregs

MUMBAI, October 29: Nurudiamma is careful that there are no dogs around. She does not mind the cow, though, that butts into her cane bask...

MUMBAI, October 29: Nurudiamma is careful that there are no dogs around. She does not mind the cow, though, that butts into her cane basket as they both scrounge for damaged or slightly rotting vegetables at the dump near the Malad vegetable market. She manages a few cauliflowers, some sweet potatoes.

But the onions have already been taken. Her find would have fetched her around Rs 20-30 today. Enough for her, her two children and her husband back in Andhra Pradesh, waiting for her money to roll in.

While the rich simply pay more and the middle class grumbles while paying through its nose for the princely veggies that onions have become, the poorest of the poor in Mumbai are literally scraping for their next meal. A handful is all that women like Nurudiamma are able to get at the dump. A watery gruel as dal is the next affordable, that too, masoor dal. For the marginally better off, eggs are more frequent, since they don8217;t require any bulbous garnishings. But what about those cauliflowers and tomatoes,the french beans and capsicums that are no longer affordable? Slumdwellers at Reay Road are trying out a new dish. Drumstick leaves and lotus stems.

8220;Well, one can8217;t steal. Neither can one beg. So this is the next best thing,8221; philosophises Antoniamma, who, along with Nurudiamma, is part of a small group of women who clean the sackful of vegetables that vendors get at the market. They are not paid a paisa, but are allowed to take away the spoilt and damaged vegetables. These are carefully cleaned, peeled and sold in groupings at their slum sites for Rs two or Rs five a bata8217;. 8220;While earlier we got much more vegetables, today they are fewer,8221; she says.

A former aanganwadi worker at Jaybharat slums in Malad, Antoniamma quit when her job got her no money. With the Rs 1,200 she makes here, she feeds, schools, scolds her three children who clamour for non-vegetarian fare but get eggs once in two months. Questions on nourishment are shrugged off.

The mismanagement of the vegetable crisis and the poordistribution system which have let prices soar through their already low plastic roofs has only added to the emaciation of an already malnourished class. The six-old-year daughter of Seeta Baiju, a gajra seller, shows signs of malnourishment, and her mother points out that the child cannot take solids. Thin and weak, the child is enthusiastically called Karishma8217; by the kids around.

For Seeta, who lives near the railway tracks of Malad, roti and masoor dal is the daily gruel for the joint family of ten. She makes a hand-to-mouth existence, earning around Rs 50 to Rs 60 per day. 8220;Kaam chal jata hai,8221; she shrugs, as her brother-in-law adds, 8220;kanda ke bagair8217; without onions.At the Reay Road slums, whose poorest of the poor serve as the benchmark for hardy living, a kid steals leaves from the drumstick trees on Mumbai Port Trust land. Laxmi Stores, run by Naru Biswas, sells these leaves for anything between Rs two and Rs five. While drumstick leaves are a delicacy with a section of Bengalis, even Biswasadmits that he has only recently begun selling them to the predominantly Bengali Muslims residing in the area. They can be prepared like any methi or palak leaves he describes.

Story continues below this ad

Another woman brings in long lotus stems for sale. Biswas is trying to retain his sales edge with these new entrants, since sales have dropped by Rs 2,000 in the past few months. Nobody buys more than a kilo of rice or wheat, a 100 grams of onions and potatoes at a time. 8220;The only sale that has increased is that of eggs,8221; he remarks.

It does not require a WHO or UNICEF report to see that those living below the poverty line are weak and vulnerable to disease. But that is the last thought in the mind of Seeta Baiju. With the city promising some meal 8211; even if it is only once a day 8211; people are not exactly dropping off for lack of food. Unfortunately, this city gives adequate excuses for killing off its citizens. Seeta lost her eighteen-month-old son to a running train that went over him when the boy was playing on the tracks. Herhutments alongside the tracks have been demolished and today she sleeps on the road, her stove hidden in some neighbour8217;s house. 8220;It is not food, but if we get a place to stay in, we could survive on one meal alone,8221; she says softly.