Ram Chandler, Hasari’s friend, shows his loyalty toward his parents by holding a proper funeral for his father. Although for holding it, he has to borrow
some money from mahajan. Besides, he also has to take his father’s responsibility to pay all the loan of his father and his grandfather. Then he still has to redeem the
family’s land which has been mortgaged by his father. Therefore, in order to pay all the loan, Ram Chandler moves to Calcutta. In Calcutta, he gets a job as a rickshaw
puller. He works every day not only to survive but also to pay his loan. When he has run out of time to pay his loan, he works everyday without stop until his condition
becomes worse. He even prefers to starve so that he can pay his loan and get his land back. All things that have been done by Ram Chandler make Hasari hopes that Ram
will get good karma in his future life. Hasari’s wish for Ram is stated below: “When the flames reached the body, I wished Ram a good journey. Above all,
I wished that he might be reborn with a better karma, in the body of a zamindar
, for example, or in that a rickshaw owner” p.176
4.2.4. The Influence of Karma on Social Life
Ram deserves to get a better life in his future life because he has done much kindness during his life. Based on Bhagavad Gita As cited in The World Book
Encyclopedia , 1971: 225 doing good deeds is one of three ways of reaching
Brahman and one ways of gaining good karma. Hindu people believe if they do
many good things in present life, they may reborn with a better karma and a better incarnation. Thus, the law of karma also influences poor Hindu people to do good
deeds during their life. Ram Chander and Hasari Pal are two of many poor people who never forget
to help others Hasari also gets many helps from some people that he meets in Calcutta. At the first time he arrives in Calcutta, there is a family who asks the Pals
to stay with them. They give a little space for Pals family to hide from the police who catch newcomers that stay in station. Another family gives Pals family a little space
to live in the pavement. Hasari repays his friends’ kindness by sharing every food that he buys. Hasari realizes that in this inhuman city, they have to help each other.
Because, no one who is willing to help the poor except the poor. Lapierre gives the example of poor people who are helping each other in their struggle:
“Their mother borrowed the neighboring woman’s chula to cook a soup which the Pals shared with her and her abandoned children. They also shared
the fritters. Nothing appeases grief and fear more affectively than a good meal, especially when you live on the pavement, with not even a sheet of
corrugated iron or canvas over your head. That night the two families drew a little closer together before they went to sleep. Only the poor may need the
help of another poor.” P.104-105 In Calcutta, there are many poor families like Hasari. They leave their
villages to get better life in Calcutta without having much money and knowing where to live. Most of them live in the pavements because they cannot afford to rent a
house in Calcutta. Renting house or even a room in Calcutta is very expensive. The luckier families can rent a room to live with all the members of the family in one
room. A better life in Calcutta becomes harder to reach because shortage of work, chronic unemployment, awfully low wages, the unavoidable child labor, the
impossibility of saving and debts that can never be redeemed. They are still poor. Although they are in difficult condition, they never forget to help each other, to
tolerate each other, and to respect each other. Lapierre explains that in a slum people never ignore the others:
“In these slums people actually put love and mutual support into practice. They knew how to be tolerant of all creeds and caste, how to give respect to a
stranger, how to show charity toward beggars, cripples, lepers, and even the
insane. Here the weak were helped, not trampled upon. Orphans were instantly adopted by their neighbors and old people were cared for and
revered by their children.” p.45
That poor people help each other can be seen when Hasari gets a job as a rickshaw puller because of one of these poor people, Ram Chandler. Hasari meets
Ram Chandler, when he helps a coolie whose his foot has been crushed by heavy metal. Hasari brings the coolie to the hospital by a rickshaw which is pulled by Ram.
After helping the coolie, Hasari and Ram become friend. Ram teaches Hasari the way to pull a rickshaw. He shares his experience to survive in Calcutta. Ram tells to
Hasari that the main purpose of Ram moves to Calcutta is to earn money to pay his loan and afford his family in the village. Ram Chandler gets a job as a rickshaw
puller also because of his friend’s kindness. When he meets Hasari, Ram has worked as a rickshaw puller for five years. Then this good man introduces Hasari to hiss boss
so that Hasari can get a job as a rickshaw puller. That is why, Hasari feels that he has debt of honor to Ram and considers Ram as his brother. This statement below tells
Ram’s kindness: “Ram was a brother to me in the jungle of Calcutta, where everyone prayed
on somebody else,” Hasari Pal would later recount. “It was h who helped and supported me, he who had found me my rickshaw. Every time I saw his gray
hair, I would speed up just to park my carriage next to his.” p.172 Beside Ram Chandler, there is a taxi driver that also helps Hasari in Calcutta.
His name is Manik Roy. He comes from the same region with Hasari, but he is luckier than Hasari. Manik Roy does not need to run on the messy traffic in Calcutta
only for earning a few rupees. He is not like other taxi drivers who act arbitrary to the rickshaw pullers. He directly helps Hasari when his taxi crushes Hasari’s rickshaw.
Here is Lapierre’s explanation about Manik Roy kindess:
“One day in a traffic jam, one of these “rajahs” had nudged Hasari and his carriage into a gutter. It was then that the miracle occurred. The driver, a
small, bald man with a scar around his neck, actually stopped to apologize. This was no sadariji from the Punjab, with a rolled beard, a turban and a
dagger, but a Bengali like Hasari, originally from Bandel, a little place on the barks of the Ganges, some twenty miles from the Pals’ village. He hastened
to help Hasari extricate his rickshaw from the gutter and even suggested sharing a bottle of Bangla with him. Next day he turned up during a torrential
downpour. Abandoning their respective vehicles, the two men took refugee in a dive at the back of Park Street.” p.334
Manik Roy also helps Hasari to get a place to live in one of the slums in
Calcutta. Hasari and other poor people who live in the pavements are removed by municipality government. Hasari and those poor people are considered disturbing
subway construction in Calcutta. Hasari really needs a place to live and Manik Roy gives him a place to live. Therefore, the kindness of Manik Roy is like a blessing
from for Hasari. The statement below explains Hasari’s difficulty: “In fact the lack of reaction was due to quite another reason. “We simply had
no more resources,” Hasari would add. “This city had financially broken our capacity to react and in this rotten tenement we had no one to come to our
defense-no union, no political leader. As for those thugs of the Mafia who had managed so well to extract rent from us, they were nowhere to be seen.
And why not admit it also. We had all been hit by so many blows that one blow more or less didn’t really matter. That vicious wheel of karma never lost
its grip.” p.348 Hasari does not believe that in inhuman city Calcutta, he meets a good man
who helps him and his family to find a place in a slum. He is very happy when Manik Roy finds a permanent room in the slum for him. Although Manik has found a
room for Hasari, it is still not easy for Hasari to rent the room. There are many people who also want the room. The owner of the room who realizes that there are
many people who want to rent the room increases the rent cost. The height of the rent cost makes Hasari do not dare to imagine to rent the room. However, Manik Roy
does not give up finding a way to get the room for Hasari. Lapierre also explains how Manik Row does not give up helping Hasari:
“The fact that the fat Bengali has appeared in person do not bode well at all,” thought Son of Miracle and, sure enough, it was not long before his worst
fears were realized. The owner blithely informed him that he was going to double the rent for the next tenant. Instead of thirty rupees a month, the room
would cost sixty, six U.S. dollars, an outrageous price for a rabbit hutch incompatible with the miserable means available to a rickshaw puller stricken
with the red fever. Hasari’s beautiful dream had just been shattered.” p.409 “Yet the taxi driver would not admit defeat. “My nickname was Son of
Miracle and, bent on living up to my name, I decided to put up a fight to get that dwelling for Hasari,” he aws to recount.” p.409
Someone like Manik Roy is rarely found in the city like Calcutta. In Calcutta
many people forget to help others because they have financial problem. However, there are some people like Hasari, Ram, and Manik who are willing to help people.
For people who still keep Hinduism doctrine like Ram, Hasari and Manik, by helping other people who need it, they get good karma. Lapierre writes in his novel that
Hindu people will do everything in order to get a good karma including giving alms to the lepers. Whereas, in Indian people believe that leprosy is a curse from god so
that the lepers are not allowed to live with common people. However, In order to get good karma, Indian people are willing to help these lepers. The evidence is stated
below: “Though they would give alms to lepers to improve their own karma, most
Indians looked upon leprosy as a malediction of the gods.” p.242
4.2.5. The Influence of Karma on Human Deed
