The
Indian Express: Lucknow: Sunday, 27 September 2015.
Krishna
Kumar, typist, GPO ke saamne wale footpath se bol raha hoon. Batayen, kya kaam
hai?” Kumar and his typewriter hit social media fame last week when a policeman
broke his machine during an anti-encroachment drive. Kumar has since returned
to the spot where he has been sitting for 34 years, with Rs 2 lakh aid, a
Remington typewriter and two security personnel, deployed since Kumar got a
“threatening call”. A police vehicle now brings him to work every day and drops
him home.
Everything
else, as Kumar’s terse introduction of himself over the phone shows, remains
the same.
On the
500-metre footpath, along a road that leads to the Governor House and Chief
Minister’s residence, there are five others like him, sitting in a row on old
bedsheets, about 2 metres apart, their typewriters placed on small stools. The
machines may be on their last legs but not typists like Kumar, who remain, for
many, guiding lights through the bureaucratic maze.
Kumar is at
his spot, under a tree, from 7 am to 5 pm, earning Rs 150-170 daily, the
equivalent of what a computer typist makes on an average. However, Kumar, who
studied only up to Class X, points out, “Even today, a computer typist cannot
write applications for a poor or illiterate person coming to meet the CM,
officers or the DGP, in a way we can.” His fellow typists nod in agreement.
Around 11 am,
a youth arrives on a scooter, carrying a stack of clothes on the pillion.
Looking around to make sure there is no traffic policeman present, so that he
can leave his two-wheeler there, he approaches Ram Swaroop Verma, who sits next
to Kumar.
Verma, 53,
has a bachelor’s degree in economics. But he has been working as a typist for
25 years. “What is your problem?” Verma asks the youth, who identifies himself
as Prithvi Kanaujia, 23. Kanaujia irons clothes at OCR Building, where
ministers and officers stay.
“My brother
has grabbed my land and I have to give an application to sahab,” Kanaujia says.
He does not know the name of the “sahab” but shares that he is one of those
officers whose clothes he irons, who has promised to help him.
Kanaujia
looks on as Verma loops the paper into his grey-and-black Remington, now more
than 20 years old. “Here I have to just tell my problem and they type out the
application and even suggest whom to address it to. A computer typist will ask
you to first write a draft application, or they charge extra,” Kanaujia says.
Noting that
Verma has started the letter, he interrupts, “Do mention that even local police
is not helping.” Verma shoots down the idea, “Ultimately you need the help of
local policemen. If you name them in your complaint, why will they help you?”
In four
minutes, Verma is done, and asks Kanaujia for Rs 20 for two copies, also
telling him where to write the officer’s name and where to sign his own name.
Meanwhile,
two youth have approached Kumar. He had typed out their job applications
earlier, and now they have come to him to draft an RTI plea. They want to know
whether their two-year diploma from Lucknow University carries the same weight
as a three-year programme. Kumar doesn’t need any more details. “I have
prepared affidavits of politicians, bio-data of students and professionals, as
well as transfer applications of policemen and PILs of lawyers,” he says.
In all these
years, Kumar adds, his typewriter has been seized at least four times in
anti-encroachment drives. It is his clients who helped him get it back, he
says.
However, what
happened on September 19, when a policeman smashed Kumar’s typewriter for
refusing to move, was unprecedented.
The footpath
they sit on, opposite the General Post Office, is in one of the highest
security zones of the state. Apart from the Governor House and the CM’s residence,
ministers’ offices, the DGP’s office and Secretariat are located within a 5-km
radius.
When
Inspector Pradeep Kumar (since suspended) broke his machine, it wasn’t just the
loss of earnings that worried Kumar. Like their counterparts across the world,
the typists here are working on the last of the typewriters. It has been four
years since what was considered the world’s only remaining unit manufacturing
“official typewriters (which are heavy and stationary)” shut down in
Maharashtra. Only a few firms continue to manufacture portable typewriters, and
none in India. The GPO typists say it is impossible to find a new typewriter
now, and the cost of the parts is prohibitive.
After the
photograph of Kumar pleading with the inspector to not break his typewriter
surfaced, orders came from the CM’s office to find the 65-year-old a new one.
Lucknow District Magistrate Raj Shekhar says he first contacted Remington
online, and was told to contact their local reseller as they had stopped
manufacturing the machines. The traders’ union also told him to do the same.
Given the pressure to provide Kumar a typewriter as soon as possible, the
administration, which didn’t know whether he typed in Hindi or English,
procured both. Later, it returned the English one.
Incidentally,
among the small businesses that have sprung up on the footpath thanks to the
typists is “a roaming mechanic”, who claims to have spare parts of old
typewriters. “My father too was a typewriter mechanic,” says Mohd Ishar, who is
in his early 50s.
Since the
incident, Kumar claims, he has been getting calls as well as “donations” into
an account whose number was put up on the Net by someone. “I am waiting for
Monday to see how much money has come,” he says.
Kumar has had
a steady string of customers today, and gets up to take a tea break only around
2.30 pm. Pointing out that “this is all I know”, he says that it was in 1981
that his father, a shop munim, bought him a typewriter for Rs 500. At the time,
there were 27 of them on the footpath. “Still, there was always a line of 10-15
people before each of us.”
Kumar and the
others started out charging 25 paise for two copies of a document. While that
has gone up to Rs 20 now, there has been not much change in his overall
earnings, Kumar says, as the number of customers has fallen drastically.
The typists
say the first blow came in the late ’90s when photocopy machines became
ubiquitous. Instead of seeking a third or fourth copy of their application,
people would just get them photocopied.
By 2.45 pm,
Kumar is back at his typewriter. A 22-year-old B.Tech student approaches the
typists. However, he only has a query for Verma: “Janata darbar kis din hota
hai?” he asks. Verma tells him it is on Wednesday. The youth then wants to know
if he can meet minister Shivpal Singh Yadav or CM at the darbar. “There is no
guarantee, but there will be a minister or officer who can take your
application,” Verma explains.
“Many in my
village have not got crop compensation and the pradhan asked me to give a
complaint at the janata darbar,” the youth explains. “I knew you could help.”
Verma is pleased, “This is why even in today’s computer age, people come to
us.”
Around 5.30
pm, Kumar starts picking up his things. He places a plastic cover over the
typewriter, wraps it with a cloth and loads it on his bicycle. He will leave it
for the night at the house of a friend in nearby PWD Colony. Kumar himself
lives in an EWS house near Patrakar Puram, about 7 km away, with his wife and
son.
As policemen
pass by, running along to the Secretariat or other government offices nearby,
Kumar says, “Why should I leave this footpath? At 65, I am not going to do
anything else and I am proud of what I do.”
Just as Kumar
is leaving, a young constable shakes his hand. Kumar allows himself a slight
smile, “I had typed some applications for him.”
.JPG)
.JPG)
