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In the picture is an elderly woman, probably in her 50’s, large in stature, and bent double over the ‘ muggu ’ or ‘ rangoli ’ (a coloured pattern on the ground) she is composing with powder.
Her archaic style of ‘pouring’ (yes, that’s the correct verb) ‘Sankranthi muggu ’ entails cradling the powder in cupped fingers, and dispensing it through a small gap between the middle and ring fingers.
That she does not care for modernity is evident in the glass bangles she wears by the dozen, the ' mehendi ' that marks her palms in big red splotches, and the worn-silver rings and anklets that adorn her craggy toes and feet. Her face is outside the frame; the focus is the easy grace of her fingers, feet spaced apart comfortably, sari pleats bunched up and tucked away.
Would you not want to approach her and let her know your appreciation for her artwork? By all means, do so. But do not expect to see a face beaming back at you with pride. What might, at the most, greet you is a friendly humble smile. Her picture might be posted on Facebook, earn hundreds of likes, shares and a thread of enthusiastic comments, but one cannot expect any excitement from her.
“Because she is ‘ Saamaanyuraalu [ordinary woman]'. She is not the one drawing a ‘ muggu ’. She IS the ‘ muggu ’,” explains Kandukuri Ramesh Babu, the one who shot the picture, and whom we friends call Kandukuri.
According to him, a potter is the ‘pot’, a weaver is the ‘weave’, and a carpenter is the ‘plough’ he makes. Our appreciation stems from the fascination far removed from the work, but for the creators, there is no separation from their creation.
“Once we understand and experience this, we shall become ordinary,” Kandukuri theorises through his work in Telugu, ‘ Meeru samanyulu kaavadam yela ? (How to become ordinary?)'.
In a way, his book, released a month ago at Hyderabad Book Fair, is an antidote to the omnipresent and omniscient chicken soups and success recipes blotting the bookshelves everywhere. It is a process of returning to point zero, touching down to life, to peace, to that state of equilibrium where one becomes fully detached from self. Kandukuri calls it ‘ Asaadhana ’ which loosely translates to unlearning [of the success modules].
“My ordinary person would not hanker after what is considered significant, because [s]he has prior knowledge that success achieves him/her, and not the other way round.”
Someone who has obtained this state either through practice or by shedding the practice wouldn’t care two hoots even if the prime minister himself invites her/him for ‘ chai pe charcha ’ or ‘ sode pe sansad ’. Strangely, this nonchalance owes itself to humility rather than to inflated self. It can puncture your ego.
Take the example of this woman cited in Kandukuri's book. She serves low-priced meals on crowded pavement near the upscale commercial food joint ‘Paradise Hotel’ in Secunderabad. Her place is swarmed by footpath dwellers during meals time. Seven or eight years ago, she is said to have received a call from the late Chief Minister Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy who happened to read of her in a newspaper. Thus went the telephone conversation…
CM : Mother, this is Rajasekhar Reddy. Calling from the camp office…
Woman : Tell me son!
CM : Can you come to the camp office once? Tell me your wish. I will grant it.
Woman : What do I want son! I shall not come anywhere.
CM : Don’t you understand mother? I’m CM Rajasekhar Reddy...
Woman : Blessed be the Lord! Who doesn’t know you son! I knew it’s you. But I have hundreds depending on me. If I don’t cook even for one day, they will starve. I feel fulfilled only by feeding them. I have children to look after me, my son! I don’t need any help.
Reading this, I was reminded of the legend about Sant Tukaram’s wife, who stubbornly refused salvation, so as to able to deliver her cow of the calf. Despite being a hero of the Ordinary, she remained a ‘nagging wife’ in popular lore.
Similar was the experience of Jayasudha, a renowned South Indian actor who visited a footpath singer as part of her reality show.
“Mother, I’m Jayasudha,” she said, approaching her.
“Lovely name!” responded the singer.
A spell of silence swept across the throng.
Ego is the core of success, and the core was then smashed, remarks Kandukuri. The visually-challenged singer had never seen Jayasudha’s films. For her, who was unaffected by the glamour of the make-believe world, the actor was no more significant than a passer-by.
Not once does Kandukuri mention the names of his heroes in the book. Being ordinary is being anonymous. Their work may be outstanding, not they.
Just like this gentleman from Khammam district who made afforestation the sole mission of his life. Inspired by a high-school lesson, he began by greening his own land, extended it to the rest of the village, and then to hillocks and forests.
Reminded of Elzéard Bouffier from Jean Giono’s allegorical tale The Man Who Planted Trees , set in pre-World War-I days? Or about Yugala Prasad from Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s Aranyak ?
Everyone knows about Lal Bahadur Shastry quitting from the Railway Ministry, taking responsibility for a railway accident. Who would’ve known about this Special A-Grade Driver of the Indian Railways, who, according to Kandukuri, took voluntary retirement when he noticed that he had had a brief spell of amnesia after witnessing an accident? In fact, after recovering from amnesia, he immediately excused himself from his next assignment and reported sick, because he didn’t want to jeopardise the safety of a train full of passengers.
Ordinariness is more extraordinary than the regular, and less noticed than the celebrity. Kandukuri even refutes the notion of ‘common man’.
“The ‘common man’ is fictional. He exists only in government statistics to denote the ‘average’. But life is beyond ‘averages’. This is the reason why governments cannot see human beings from the non-economic angle.”
A journalist by profession, Kandukuri began his search for ‘Ordinariness’ through a column titled ‘ Saamaanyashaastram [the science of ordinariness]’ in the weekly supplement of a Telugu newspaper, where he brought forth the extraordinary lives of ordinary persons, often ignored by the mainstream, from the nooks and crannies of society.
He has changed jobs since, but hasn't dropped the quest for the ‘ordinary’. Through his Saamaanyashaastram (Ordinarology) campaign, he published a series of books on people's lives on the streets. Beginning with the one about death of a commercial artist whose pictures of chicken would be found in front of all the poultry shops in the city, he went on to write 12 booklets describing the extraordinariness of many an ordinary person. This is his thirteenth, summing up his philosophy.
Throughout this book, says Kandukuri, he attempts to bring the masses, who spend their lives hankering after ‘success’, back to the Ordinary. He conceives of three categories of people (he rubbishes the word ‘people’, by the way). The first constitute a fifth of the whole, who have strayed away from being ordinary, charted their course to success in their chosen field, but remain utter failures in other facets of life (Kandukuri ran a column of such “failure stories” for a while). Two-fifths of people are ordinary, who live insignificant but fulfilled lives, away from the limelight but contented in themselves. The remaining two-fifths belong nowhere. They are the ones who constantly try to clamber up the heights, imitating the successful.
“They can never reach there, and lose the beauty of being ordinary. My book aims to bring them back to reality. I want to tell them, 'Let us [look to] spread like plains rather than tower like summits.'”
One must stop singing if one is not the song. One must stop pottery if one is not the pot. One must stop weaving if one is not the weave. This is the recipe for happiness. Finding out what he/she is.
But how? Stop comparisons, Kandukuri says. Life is not binary. Strength exists against the weak ‘other’. Riches exist against the poor. APL exists against the perception of BPL.
The existence of literates is hinged on the word “illiterate”. “White” becomes visible on “black”. The “beautiful/handsome” thrives by the “ugly”. The “men” othered the women, and transgenders. The “normal” comes to be only when the “abnormal” is separated.
“Curiously, we forget that it’s only through our challenge that they became challenged,” writes Kandukuri. Otherwise, each individual exists in her/his own right and beauty.
To sum up, Kandukuri’s ordinary person...
- Becomes 100 per cent of whatever he/she does.
- Talks less; but when he/she talks, he/she becomes the word.
- Is generous, friendly, and expects nothing in return.Takes no help in his/her work… doesn’t flaunt his talents.
- Shares, and doesn’t flinch from accepting someone's grace.
- Forms his/her own opinions; believes that future is not about individual prosperity.
- Takes life as it comes… “achieves” nothing.
- Doesn’t attempt to write his/her own history; creates no literature for himself/herself.
- Is modern, contemporary, yet distanced from the modern world's lures and rules.
- Knows the importance of change and works for change, though change is not his/her sole agenda.
- Is not an natural activist; activism, for him/her, manifests as inescapable duty, not heroic deed.
- Does not compare, does not hanker after new experiences.
- Runs, but does not race; knows his/her progress is his/her own.
“So, when will you stop living others’ lives?” asks Kandukuri earnestly, at the end of the book.
