Smt. Rani Soyamoi

 

Why is the collector not wearing makeup...?

Malappuram District Collector  Smt. Rani Soyamoi interacts with  College students.

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She wore no jewellery other than a wristwatch.

What surprised most of the children was that she did not even use face powder.

The speech is in English.  She spoke for only a minute or two, but her words were full of determination.

The children then asked the collector some questions.

Q: What's your name?

My name is Rani.  Soyamoi is my family name.  I am a native of Jharkhand.

Anything else to ask ?.

A slender girl stood up from the audience.

Ask, the child.

"Madame, why don't you use any makeup on your face?"

The collector's face suddenly turned pale.  Sweat broke out on her thin forehead.  The smile on her face faded.  The audience suddenly became silent.

She opened the water bottle on the table and drank a little.  Then she gestured to the child to sit.  Then she began to speak slowly.

The child asked a confusing question.  It is something that can never be answered in a single word.  I have to tell you my life story in answer.  Let me know if you are willing to set aside your precious ten minutes for my story.

Ready ...

I was born in a tribal area of ​​Jharkhand.

The collector paused and looked at the audience.

I was born in a small hut in the tribal area of ​​Koderma district, full of "mica" mines.

My father and mother were miners.  I had two brothers above and a sister below.  We lived in a small hut that leaked when it rained.

My parents worked in the mines for meagre wages because they could not find another job.  It was a very messy job.

When I was four years old, my father, mother and two brothers were bedridden with various ailments.

Little did they know at the time that the disease was caused by inhaling the deadly mica dust in the mines.

When I was five, my brothers died of an illness.

With a small sigh, the collector stopped talking and closed her eyes filled with tears.

Most days our diet consisted of water and one or two loaves of bread.  Both my brothers left this world due to acute illness and starvation.  In my village, there were no people who went to the doctor or to school.  Can you imagine a village without a school, a hospital or even a toilet? Even without electricity?.

One day when I was hungry, my father grabbed me, all skin and bones and dragged me to a large mine covered with corrugated iron sheets.

It was a mica mine that had gained notoriety over time.

It is an ancient mine that was dug up and dug into the underworld.  My job was to crawl through the tiny caves at the bottom and collect mica ores.  It was only possible for children under the age of ten.

For the first time in my life, I ate bread and had a full stomach.  But that day I vomited.

By the time I was in first grade, I was sniffing mica through the dark rooms where I could breathe poisonous dust.

It was not uncommon for unfortunate children to die in occasional landslides.  And occasionally some with fatal diseases.

If you work eight hours a day, you will earn at least one loaf of bread.  I was thin and dehydrated every day because of hunger and starvation.

A year later my sister also started going to work in the mine.  As soon as I got a little better, my father, mother, sister and I worked together and came to a point where we could live without hunger.

But fate was beginning to haunt us in another form.  One day when I was not going to work due to high fever, it suddenly rained.  Hundreds of people died when the mine collapsed in front of workers at the base of the mine.  Among them were my father, mother and sister.

Tears began to flow through both eyes of the collector.  Everyone in the audience forgot to even breathe.  The eyes of many were filled with tears.

I have to remember that I was only six years old.

Eventually, I arrived at the Government Agati Mandir.  There I was educated.  I was the first from my village to learn the alphabet.  Finally here is the collector in front of you.

You may be wondering what the connection is between this and the fact that I do not use makeup.

She continued, glancing through the audience.

It was then that I realized that the whole mica I had collected while crawling through the darkness those days was being used on makeup products.

Mica is the first type of fluorescent silicate mineral.

Among the mineral makeups offered by many big cosmetic companies, the most colourful are the multi-coloured mica that makes your skin glow with the lives of 20,000 young children at the risk of their own lives.

The softness of the rose spreads on your cheeks with their charred dreams, their shattered lives and their flesh and blood crushed among the rocks.

Millions of dollars worth of mica are still picked up by baby hands from mines.  To enhance our beauty.

Now you tell me.

How do I apply makeup on my face ?.  How can I eat on a full stomach in memory of my brothers who died of starvation?  How can I wear expensive silk dresses in the memory of my mother who always wore torn clothes  ?.

The whole audience stood up unknowingly as she walked out, holding her head up without opening her mouth, filled with a small smile.  The make-up on their faces was starting to soak in the hot tears that were dripping from their eyes.

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Don't blame them if some of them are disgusted when they see women full of face powder, cream, lipstick.

(The highest quality mica is still mined in Jharkhand. More than 20,000 young children work there without going to school. Some are buried by landslides and some by disease.)