Crumble





	The wind blew harder towards noon making him tighten 
the damp cloth that covered his lower face. Gusts of humidity 
struck the brick powder, billowing wisps of bright nothing into
the air. And as the red grains drifted into his nostrils, 
somewhere under his eyes, he felt their pin sized stings.
	Shahed was seated on the square of jute that served
him as a cushion. Underneath were large boulders that had been 
hardened by the burdens of centuries. They were used as a base
to shatter bricks. And that was Shahed�s job- he was a brick-breaker.
A member of a team hired to crush clay bricks into rubble, which 
would be churned with cement and water to form the foundations 
of buildings.
	There were thirty others with him today, hammering and
singing to each other with even regularity. Their gang was quite
uncommon for their singing tradition. They usually chose popular
movie tunes, sometimes from famous Hindi movies. Today they sang
a favorite: 

�I can sing a song
to stir up dreams
if only you asked me (my love.)
 
I can tell you to come,
And Spread a shining bed.  
Sprinkle flowers where you step.
 
Turn this earth into sky
With stars to shine in it,
if only you asked me (my love).�


It was a way to keep spirits up. As if to the rhythm of a drum,
thirty arms descended in synchrony as thirty weak lungs competed
for salty pockets of air. 
Breakers did not live much past forty. Over years, layers of dust 
settled in their lungs and clogged their windpipes. At some point,
when it became difficult to swallow even the weakest broths, their
songs would inevitably turn into wails. It would then be a matter
of a few agonizing days, before the construction foreman 
dismissed them.
       That was the day they all dreaded. Their life counted-down
to that very day. From then on, they would become obsolete machinery-
accumulated with dirt and useless. Only a few would return home. There
was little point in doing so; little point in facing a family that 
they could no longer provide with the token stimuli for survival.  
The glimmer that held together their thread of resolve, would dissolve
into air. Some would flee the city, returning to their village
homes to die. Some would search hopefully for rich relatives to beg  
from. But there were the few that returned home knowing that 
they would witness their family crumble about them, despite 
them.
	Shahed was falling behind. Those seated beside him had stopped
nudging the customary warnings months ago. Now they only watched him
to gage how much longer he could last; how much he was holding them 
back. It was clear that his time was waiting somewhere nearby. There 
was no space for sympathy in their lives. Sympathy never helped, it 
only left a hollow feeling of helplessness.
	But there were other things on Shahed's mind. Every now and 
then, he would ignore the rhythm and leave his hammer dangling idle.
His eyes then clouded over in reflection of his mind. He thought of 
his wife and the child she carried. He recalled how she looked that 
morning- her body tightly strung together with hard labor, but with 
a single area of softness weighing her down. The child was ready now.
Bigger and bolder with every passing hour, it troubled its mother 
constantly. It had been kicking all night, foolishly impatient to 
leave the last comfort it would know. These were not days to be born 
into.
	The foreman walked over several times, his eyes quietly 
evaluating Shahed's pile, his stroke and his song. And he made the
necessary decision. When evening fell, and the breakers lined for
their money, he refused to pay Shahed. He only pointed to the heap
of unfinished work: not needing to say more.
	There was nothing to argue about, nothing to beg for. It would 
be as pointless as asking the sun for shade. Shahed�s days as a breaker 
were over. The others looked elsewhere as he picked up his mat and 
hammer and walked away.
	He heard the shrill, the new and yet familiar cry before 
entering his thatched hut. His eldest daughter handed him a small
bundle of sacking- his newest son. Shahed took the responsibility
gently and rested it on his arm. He looked at the brown cheeks, round
and soft they were filled with brand new vigor. And as Shahed looked 
into its flushed face, he felt his own eyes stare back. A tiny fist shot
out, grabbing empty air in defiance. He felt a mixture of pride and 
deep pity at this show of strength. For he knew of the stages that 
would break this will. He knew of the knocking, the pounding and the
beating that would surely break this will. Still carrying his hammer
and mat, he left the hut with the child.
	Not conscious of where he was going, he shuffled one foot in 
front of the other. All the while he crooned softly. Soon, almost by
accident, he found himself at the construction site. He noticed, as 
if a new visitor, that the foundation was almost complete. This site
like all the others, had seeped away his blood, coloring itself with
borrowed vitality. For years he had been working for these buildings,
sweating away the precious salts of life and beating them into the 
bricks. Now they were now more alive than he was.
	He walked over to the pile he had been working on earlier
that day; the first pile he had started and left incomplete. Shahed
lay the newborn down, using the mat to make it comfortable. He then
took his hammer and started chipping away. As clay fragmented under
his strikes, he sang. Another first for him- he sang alone. In the 
silence, he was allowed to hear his sole performance. And he noticed 
that his was no longer a song, but the screech of air forced through
tight valves. And that his stroke was the jittery fall of broken parts 
and loose joints.
	But as he kept striking, he felt a strength begin to build up
in his flesh; one that spread itself from the core of his bones outwards.
It came from the space that exists between the innermost layers of the
self, from underneath the deepest tissues of the body. It was the 
intangible essence, the human spirit that marrow cushions. A lifetime 
of emotion banished to inside himself, it was the stillest of reserves, 
the most private. And as it slowly rose, it fired cells, veins and 
tendons as it approached surface skin. Blood tore through his small 
frame, gushing to his face, his hands. If he had felt weak earlier, he 
now sensed the gut force of forty years of restrained fury. A lifetime 
of ignoring and accepting, of hiding and lying. It was as if his spirit
was reclaiming all the energy he had pounded out. He hammered to watch 
the fine red of the brick mix with his blood, and as the baby screamed, 
he thought to himself that there was nothing to wait for.










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