MAY DAY
S V VENUGOPALAN
The leader who so affectionately called me "Comrade" would be 60 by then. I was barely 23! I got endeared to him and was there seated next to him in his house, waiting to hear the history of May Day from him! My inspiration was more on account of this warmth of his togetherness beyond such an age difference.
"Why all of a sudden you show interest on May Day?" he asked me. That was his style. He was none other than Com C S Panchapakesan, fondly called CSP by friends and comrades, the tall leader of the P&T movement under the mighty banner of the former NFPTE. I got introduced to him when I was doing school finals in an accidental way. Those days he was a resident of Vellore and I was studying at my grand parents home at Kancheepuram. However, I used to visit my parents at Vellore during holidays and on the annual vacation that year, I had a chance meeting with him who happened to live in the adjacent house.
When he was browsing through a few lines of my poem which read,..."that God hath predetermined our joy and sorrow...", CSP had gently asked me who was that god I was referring to in that poem and where could he meet him, if at all he lived somewhere. Shocked by that irreligious under-current, I returned home with a lot of heart burns. But I resumed my visits the next day arguing with him frequently on so many social and spiritual issues. And we used to part with our respective views in tact. And due to repeated transfers, my father kept shifting his place and I lost touch with CSP.
It was again on an accidental visit of his Bank Union activist son Com C P Chandrasekaran to Vanganur branch of Indian Bank where I had just then joined as a new Clerk that our contacts got renewed. Both could recognise each other easily and that chance meeting with CPC took me to CSP who had moved to Chennai then.
Com CSP was very joyous to know that I intended to organise a rally on the May Day at Vanganur. He was elated to know that the poor hand loom workers of that small village would be celebrating the May Day. He was aware that there was no branch of any Communist Party or a big Trade Union, yet the local people would be getting to know of a historic occasion. He handed me a book on the history of May Day. When I touched it, I felt as though I was touching the spark of the glorious struggle of 1886 in Chicago that was getting passed to successive generations.
The May Day pamphlet, one of the first drafts to be made by me, started like this: "....those days, workers had neither seen the sun rise nor the sun set...". A product of my inexperience and over enthusiasm, the front-and-back two page material was being distributed by me very widely. Little did I realise that a major fraction of the villagers was not that comfortable to read such a big matter. I felt my own write up was mocking at my childishness.
The May Day manifesto was ringing aloud at the tea shops, small hotels, market place, Sevandiamman temple, library, post office and every nook and corner of the village. With the company of a local Periyarist (follower of EVR Periyar's Dravidian movement), I reached the police station that was situated at a distance of about 3 km where the cops were stunned to know our plans to hold the May Day rally. They had a lot of questions to pose when we sought their permission to hold the programme. Was it an under ground activity to observe the May Day, I asked myself and there was a chillness running down my spine.
Back at the village, an old man sought to know which Party was to hold the rally and that prompted us to declare that it would be an all Party affair jointly ! This naturally bound everybody and none could slip off the movement that was picking up. Hopes, fear, apprehensions, expectations, doubts and all that were piling up in me as the day was fast approaching and I could sense the heat internally brewing up.
Notwithstanding such emotions, the notice distribution was going on in a unique way as children and youth kept encircling me at each point where I would be loudly explaining what had happened in Chicago in 1886. The massive mobilisation of workers on the 1st May demanding 8 hours work, the brutal attack by the hooligans engaged by the capitalists, the protest assembly of workers on the 4th May at Hay Market Square where the police force pounced on the workers on the pretext of a Sergeant's death resulting in a blood bath, the bogus trial of leaders and the hanging of four of them, etc., were all being listened to with keen interest and the crowd followed me wherever I went joining me in the notice distribution.
The hand loom workers would normally take a day off on every new moon day (Amavasai) and their routine starts with preliminary preparations of the dyed threads to be made fit to be fixed into loom for weaving. This involves hard physical labour on the streets stretching the threads over make-shift bamboo stands, removing the dusts, spreading the threads across in a neat fashion and applying starch over them that would keep drying under the hot sun to be wound up in the warp later. With their earnings disproportionately low to their sweat and toil, their lives were a sorry tale with insufficient incomes, increasing debts and disturbing suicides and some where this travails found their resonance with the horrible conditions of workers that led to the birth of May Day.
Our rally started winding up all the available four big streets. Those days, there was no conscious effort to photograph or document such a historic happening in that humble village. The size of the rally was getting swollen as we went street after street. Children, women and even old men joined us very merrily and the red flag was fluttering high in air as if a big revolution was taking place. The majestic marchers raised resounding slogans that were quite new and attractive to them. I was flabbergasted by the way the simple weavers of a remote village could stretch their hands across the seas and landscapes to touch the Historic city of Chicago in their emotions. I was stunned to witness what was happening before my own eyes.
At the close of the rally, the public meeting was to start. Fearing that my voice would be chocked due to long time slogan shouting, I kept drinking countless glasses of hot water from the nearby tea shop and I could not think of the consequential effects. After the meeting was over, the organisers and the contributors to the success of the rally sat in a house in a circle tasting the 'Pongal' prepared at our request by the priest of the local Vishnu temple.
A local customer asked me, even as he was locking up his petty shop, "Cashier Sir, you were so highly critical of the capitalist class...". With a high sense of pride, I started walking down towards my room in the dark street that had fallen asleep having been tired after experiencing the joyful steps of hundreds of children and adults. On reaching my place, all I just knew was that I was losing myself on to the floor for my quota of sleep. And next morning, I woke up to the shocking sight of my white dhoti completely soaked in blood reflecting the heat I had developed through days and I had to travel 3 hours to seek a suitable medical remedy. More than the pain, the pleasure of the successful experiment was over weighing in my mind.
I was standing before Com CSP in his Tambaram (Chennai) house to share the exulting news of the May Day celebrations in Vanganur. After patiently listening and patting me on my back, Com CSP had this to say: "Look here, Venu, you have kindled the feelings of an innocent section who were blissfully unaware of such a heroic saga of the working class..one day you would vacate the place on your transfer. who would take the mantle then?"
He continued:"What is important is the continued work among people to raise their awareness and their assertion of their rights. This is not an one day affair"
There was, indeed another comrade in my own branch getting ready to take the torch for the further run. But CSP's words made me understand that the travel to be undertaken was longer than the four streets of the village.
Every other May Day, since then, dawns on me with an inspiring call, but it takes leave every time, only by echoing the words of Com CSP.
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writer's mail id: sv.venu@gmail.com
mobile no: + 91 94452 59691
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