Malegaon

This is a fellow journalist's account of 24 hours spent in Malegaon. He's lazy, so I wrote it out.

This town is at least twenty years behind the times. When you turn off the highway, you hit a road with its asphalt worn away. It's not a small town, mind you. Over six lakh people live in Malegaon, and it's a textile production centre. There are some 2.5 lakh powerlooms in the town.

Last September there was a blast. (Carried out by a Hindu outfit. Six died.) I met a shopkeeper who had a lucky escape. The bicycle on which bomb was planted was parked two-three feet away from mattress on which he sits. (Shopkeepers there don't stand at counter, they are perched on a mattresses.) Seconds before the blast, he had bent behind his writing desk, looking for something. Sharpnels only grazed his head.

Six months on, the portion of wall behind him still bears the ravaged look. You can make out, from the size of each pockmark, whether a nail had hit that particular spot, or a ball bearing, or a shard of glass. I asked the old man why he didn't repair the damaged portion. It didn't matter, he said.

Two-thirds of the population is Muslim. There is a clear boundary between Muslim and Hindu areas: a bridge over the river. The shopkeeper said riots happen routinely. After every riot, Hindus living in Muslim-dominate areas moved out. Gradually, a total partition came about.

Muslims are made up of two classes. The powerloom workers came from other parts of Maharashtra or the south India. They're called Dakkhanis -- deccan-ites. The other class is that of powerloom owners, who came from north India.

I met president of powerloom owners' association. The whole textile business in Malegaon is based on `rolling capital', he said. What's rolling capital? Cloth producer doesn't pay the raw material supplier. When he sells the cloth, he asks buyer to pay the raw material supplyer directly. But he gets a commission -- his profit.

There is no backward or forward integration. In other words, the town only produces cloth. Powerloom owners don't go into yarn-making, or cotton-growing. Similarly, they haven't thought of venturing into garment-production. One reason could be the lack of capital. It's shocking, but most do not have bank accounts. To earn interest is un-Islamic. Powerloom owners in Ichalkaranjee have launched their own apparel brands. Nothing like that here.

I met the Imam of Jama masjid. I started off in Marathi. He said he didn't know Marathi. It made me a little angry: Malegaon is a Maharashtra hinterland, not a border town. This fellow has lived here all his life, but he doesn't speak Marathi.

He is well-educated. But most children still go to Madarasas, he said. There are two government-run Urdu medium schools. There's not a single college.

I didn't see any cultural and recreational places, barring cinema theatres. (Malegaon produces ultra-low budget films.)

I went to see the local MLA. I was waiting in his drawing room. The door to the inner rooms was curtained. A hand emerged from behind the curtain. It was a lady's hand, bearing a glass of water for me. She didn't come out, into drawing room. She banged her wrist on the doorframe to attract our attention. One of the MLA's lackeys took the glass and brought it to me.

I was staying at a hotel. In the evening, there was a knock on the door. It was police. They questioned me for full ten minutes, despite I telling them that I was a journalist from a reputed paper. I asked them if they question all the new guests in the hotel. Not all, they said, only a few. Why did they zero in on me? Obviously because of my typical Marathi Brahmin surname.

This was the aftermath of September blast.

They left. Minutes later, another knock. As I opened the door, a zombie-like figure loomed up. It scared the hell out of me. Yes? I asked. The man, straight out of one of those Ramsay horror films, mumbled something. What do you want, I asked. Massage? he said. I said no and shut the door.