All for the love of lucre

Only Between Us:

Aditha DISSANAYAKE in New York

The spirit of Avurudu thrived at the New York temple on April 12 with the annual pooja and the traditional sweetmeats. For me the highlight of the day however, was getting to know a young man, (if thirty six could be called young), from home, who had, to put it mildly "overstayed" his time here in New York.

Dressed in a blue cotton shirt, matching pants with a thick gold chain hanging from his neck, Dammika looks anything but the down-and-out immigrant I had imagined immigrants are supposed to be. Even though he invites my partner and I, to his apartment for a meal, he changes his mind at the last moment.

"There are four of us living there, lots of clothes strewn everywhere, four mattresses, four plates, four mugs".

"Like in a fairy tale?". I ask him.

"Like in a nightmare." He answers. "Dunkin' is a better place", he says specially because his room mate Shanthe is working there and he will join us when his shift ends.

Like most other immigrants Dammika too had arrived in the USA in search of the golden pot. Had he found it yet? "I earned $ 11,000 last month" he says with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say that's peanuts. When I tell him I had thought he worked in a mall and wonder aloud if anyone can earn that much money stacking tins of sardine on shelves in a supermarket he says no that was in the past. He had once worked in a supermarket, a Deli to be exact, owned by an Indian who had paid him $5 an hour for 12 hours a day seven days of the week.

We stare at him in amazement and it does not surprise us when he says after six months he had given it up.

"I lost my temper" he explains. "I shouted at the Indian, called him a mango seed because that was the only curse word I knew at the time and walked out." Sauntering around the Mall he had seen a "help wanted" sign in what looked like an artist's workshop. The Greek artist who was also the owner had hired him for $10 an hour. But the business was sinking and Christos Sarakine was searching for someone to buy his business so that he could return to Greece even though he had citizenship here. "I had enough money saved in my account back home to buy the business. And I bought it from Sarakine. Now we are partners" says Dammika. While Sarakine paints Dammika does the administrative work. They share the profit fifty fifty. Dammika opens his palms out skywards and says "Every now and then I do find the Golden Pot, like last month. It is amazing how people want portraits of their dogs who just died or of their grandmothers."

But, he confesses the life of an undocumented immigrant is hard and filled with tension.

He had survived till now by staying out of trouble and not getting involved with the police.

Even though no policeman has the right to arrest immigrants who have no valid papers to be working in the USA, agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the right to check their papers and if the right documents are missing "everything will go up in smoke". "I wouldn't advise anybody to try this. We are doing something against the law and even though the dollars are useful the loneliness and the stress is unbearable" advises Dammika.

Of the many ways one could enter the USA, Dammika had chosen the easiest. Coming for a visit as a tourist.

"But there are other ways of doing this too" says Shanthe as he joins us at our table.Other ways? Yes. Catch you next week with Shanthe's story.

Names have been changed