The migrant mother’s son’s story

My boy is somewhere in the junglerdquo the maid told me ldquoItrsquos four days now I havenrsquot heard from himrdquoHemu her youngest son was on a journey that most would consider straightforward he wanted to get from point A India to point B Bangkok to see his mother However there was a reason why he could not just hop into a plane from the nearest airport Hemu had no passport He was a native of a ruined country called Myanmar where people didnrsquot matterldquoHe has to sneak in through Burma and cross the border into Thailandrdquo said Chanda ldquoIrsquove paid everyone but now hersquos gone silentrdquoThe Indian agent had demanded 20 lakh Myanmar khat roughly R81000 for the whole trip Chanda had negotiated it down to 15 lakh up front balance to be paid after crossing over into Thailand He had spirited them across several borders to a village in the Myanmar jungles Hemu and four other refugees had been bundled into a car to be driven to the Thai borderBut now Hemu had gone dark Chanda had not slept all nightldquoHe too may be deadrdquo she saidLetrsquos talk about Bombai Click the QR code above to join my WhatsApp group to share your Bombai stories for my bookmdashand perhaps answer some of my Bombai questionsChanda spoke Nepali natively and Hindi fluently but her official home was the hellish nation known as Myanmar ruled by a greedy clutch of military thieves She had been living and working legally as a documented migrant in Thailand for many years Irsquove changed her name to protect her privacyImagine a skinny hollowcheeked woman in her mid50s a matchstick human being of intense nervous energy Once unhappily married to a faithless philandering Burmese man when I first met her she was the beleaguered mother of the many progeny she had produced with him All fully functional adults in their 30s they were reading from left to right one handsome but wayward son given to substance abuse a daughter on the autistic spectrum but passable housemaid material a promiscuous youngest daughter who had abandoned her two children into Chandarsquos care while she disappeared with a brutish Thai lover who beat her regularly a righteous youngest son who earned small change in mornings as a cook and finally Hemu the boy incommunicado in Burmarsquos junglesThey all depended in one way or another on the frail woman whom I had hired as a maidChanda lives on a planet where people like her are unacceptable mdash fleeing failed nations wracked by unrest crime and kleptocracy to seek refuge in countries that will only tolerate them as an inferior species or hunt them down as illegal aliensShe approached me diffidently with a request a few weeks after she started work with meldquoThere is a medicine that cures alcohol addictionrdquo said Chanda ldquoIt is only available in India Can you get it for me the next time you go thererdquoldquoWho is it forrdquo I asked herldquoMy eldest boyrdquo she said showing me a photo of a dashing lad in his 20s ldquoHe looked like this once so handsome Now he is unemployed hottempered and drunk He shoots drugs up his arms and demands to be fed when he comes home at 2 and 3 in the morningrdquoShe showed me a TikTok screenshot describing a potion that guaranteed a complete cure from any addiction A few drops had to be slipped into the food or drink daily for a few monthsI promised to do what I could In India I finally tracked down a stockist in Dadar and bought five bottles for ChandaThe medicine seemed to work at first anyway ldquoHe only drinks a little beer nowrdquo she told me pleased that her stratagem seemed to be bearing fruitBut one evening he staggered home roaring drunk vomited volumes of dark material and stopped breathing Emergency measures at the hospital failed and he died in the ICU the following day his mother desperately holding on to his hand as though she could restrain death itselfAnd thus Chanda lost her firstborn She swallowed the grief and pain just one more in a life littered with loss but this time she changed her religion exchanging the one whose gods had failed her for another whose pastors promised her the Lord would always watch over herThe last time Chanda came to me she was in high dudgeon ldquoThis is very stressfulrdquo she said ldquoThe Burmese military police stopped their car and took them Now they are locked up The soldier called me and demanded 5 lakh to let them go I want to hear his voice first but they refuserdquoldquoCall the soldier backrdquo I advised her ldquoOffer him 6 lakh if hersquoll put your son on the linerdquoAnd so finally Chanda heard Hemursquos voice dry and cracked Mother and son cried for a while and then she transferred the money to the soldier apparently through an app designed for Burmese soldiers to receive payments from illegal migrantsTherersquos nothing more Chanda can do The boy may be in Thailand He may find his way to her The family may be reunited In her head she has already marked him missing presumed deadThe Lord she must assume will be watching over them No one else isYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper