Intro: Conversations with an elderly labourer
His cheeks are wet. These are tears, he says, rubbing his left eye.
A series of questions elicit the following responses from citizen Anand.
“On ekattis (31) December, I will turn paisath (65).”
“I’m already old, I’m now about to step into an even older age. My life will become more unbearable. My body will feel more pain. The ageing limbs already give me so much pain.”
“Being a labourer, I carry goods from one place to another for a Chawri Bazar dukandar (shopkeeper). I have to carry nug ka samaan on my head. The body finds it increasingly tough to withstand so much load, but I cannot afford to stop working.”
“I am from UP’s janpad Bahraich, village Rajabaondi. I have a complaint to make about Ghagra. The river destroys our land, again and again, year after year. We plant dhan crop, but the river floods our land, and when the river takes back its water, it also takes away our kamaun mitti (productive soil), and also our dhan. I plant the crop again, and Ghagra again comes back. Eventually, I was forced to leave the village to search for some other source of income in some big city.”
“I arrived in Delhi for the first time in 2006, and found work as a labourer in Chawri Bazar. But I’m not a mazdoor, I am a farmer, I still farm my land in the village.”
“I earn 10,000 rupees each month in Delhi, and half of this amount goes away in paying for my daily needs… the rest of the amount is too little for my family in the village.”
“My daughter is 17. I will soon need money for her wedding.”
“My two sons are also labourers in Delhi. They have their own families. Like me, they too earn very little.”
“Today I could not start my work because of the legs, they have been aching a lot since the morning.”
“The winter has begun, and the body has started to feel very cold. Some time ago I boarded a rickshaw for ten rupees to Naya Bazar, where I bought a lower for twenty rupees…buying it was a mazboori (necessity).”
He unties his bundle to show the purchase.
“What if I die akasmik (all of a sudden)? Will the body be sent to my village, or will it be disposed of in this city without the proper rituals?”
