Mataji

Mataji - The holy woman who I have chai with most mornings on the way to school. She blesses me, gives me a Tilaka - the mark on my forehead, and this morning gave me a Rakh - a red wristband made of threads of cotton. It is a symbol from Shiva that is meant to bring me money and fortune. Most of my class have a Rakh so I'm guessing the money and fortune is spread thinly. Mataji is an extraordinary old woman from Nepal who is the mother of Rani, a young woman who runs the school project I help at, both of whom are accepting and generous to everyone. They accepted me into their tiny one room home without question or hesitation. The single room in their house is their living room, temple room and bedroom all in one and is full of effigies of the many Hindu gods - it is about the size of a small box bedroom of a Victorian terrace house. There are flower garlands everywhere which seem to attract many insects, mostly cockroaches but as Mataji is highly religious she won’t kill any of them as they are all god's creatures and deserve the right to live. This is an equality that becomes apparent because the home is actually an illegally built home, without permission nor provision, so they are living on someone else's land, the governments', as are the insects. Originally when the family arrived in Delhi, 25 years ago, they were homeless and penniless so were willing to live anywhere. Unscrupulous landlord built many small dwellings on waste-ground amongst the building sites of the rapidly expanding city, some were meant to be temporary homes for workers others were just to take advantage of migrants. This then is where Mataji's family ended up, having to pay rent for a home that could be bulldozed any time but all these years later it is still here as are a whole road of similar homes.