Koraput: Various people choose various vocations to make a living. Dinabandhu Muduli, a sexagenarian in Sunabeda area of Koraput district, supplies water-filled jars to shops and eateries on his trolley-rickshaw to keep the pot boiling back home. However, that’s not all about it.
Muduli says that his job of supplying water is not just to eke out a living, but that he is doing it out of his love for quenching thirst. Such benevolence has given him the moniker of ‘Jal Data’ (giver of water) in the area.
He gets up at day break way before the local market is prepared for business. After finishing his morning chores, he goes about cleaning the water container jars and then loads about 15 to 20 ten-litre jars on his old trolley before going out to fetch water from a tube well on the outskirts of the municipality area.
By the time he approaches the market with the water-filled jars, the shops are often open for business. He asks shopkeepers if they need water, while pedaling his trolley through the market bylanes. The shopkeepers, who love him for his helpful and amiable nature, never let him go without buying one or two for their shops.
“For a man like Dinabandhu who is aged bout sixty or so, pulling a trolley with water jars is not an easy task. We have been watching him do the same job for years now. We all love him for his innocence,” says a grocery shop owner.
Another nearby shopkeeper joins, “He asks Rs 3 for a jar. The price is too little if compared to the labour he puts into his job. Some of us give him Rs 5 instead of his regular price.”
Dinabandhu collects his money from the shopkeepers in the evening.
If confronted with another job prospect, his prompt answer remains his childhood propensity towards quenching the thirst.
“I can carry goods on my trolley for the shopkeepers. They never turn me down. But supplying water gives me more satisfaction than that,” he boasts while adding that he has been running his family happily without any issue.
Quenching people’s thirst apart, he also makes necessary arrangements so that stray animals can also get some water when they need.
“Even during these hot summer days, he is seen doing the same tiresome job. Never seen him cursing God or luck,” another shopkeeper observes.