A BAD DAY: How the dirty job is done!

It was one of those moments in life when the truth suddenly hits you in the face and you know your perception of certain things will never be the same. I was in my car commuting to work as usual, when I saw a worker being lowered in a manhole (or was it a sewer?) by a few others. He had stripped down to his underwear, and all he had for protection was a belt across his chest, attached to the rope, which was meant to lower him into the hole. No protective gear. No gloves. No helmet. No torch. No gum boots. No mask against the gases and stench down there. Wearing his own personal underwear bought with his own money. Obviously the other choice would have been his own clothes – and looking at the guy I am sure he doesn’t have that many. This is when it occurred to me that I have never seen a municipality worker – be it a sweeper or other, wearing work clothes or a uniform provided by the municipality (the most “impressive” feature I have seen in this regard is the light-reflective vests of the cleaners of the JJ flyover). I also remembered an exhibition of photographs held at a past Kala Ghoda festival, which my merciful brain had made me forget: It was about those who are in charge of cleaning Mumbai’s sewers. No visual detail was spared about the atrocities they have to wade through every day, the kind of waste they have to deal with, touch with their bare hands and then wash off in their own bathrooms (well, I guess it would be too much to even think that the municipality would give them service bathrooms. But hey, they should be happy they have a job at all, right?). So this is what really hit me: Yes, as tax payers we have all the right to complain about the bad conditions of our city, the dirt, the overflowing sewers. But what do we really expect if the dirty work is done by people like these, devoid of dignity, paid peanuts, and without even the simplest protective devices? No self-respecting wageworker in any developed country would have even considered going “down the drain” in his underwear, and what’s more, if asked, he would have slapped the respective authorities with a serious lawsuit. Not to speak about the outburst of public anger that would have swept the media.

Other examples:

- ladies sweep the roads in their own saris

- they are made to use very short brooms, so they have to be bent in two all the time

- in the absence of a broom, they are given two broken pieces of cardboard to squeeze rubbish into!

- on construction sites, women carry loads on their heads, men don't wear protective goggles when working with machines, and their kids are all over

- workers are made to step bare-footed in all kinds of stuff, including tar

- temporary road workers are "accomodated" in shanties, basically, they sleep on the street

- I have always wondered - why can't they work at night, when it's cooler?

HOW MUCH MORE CRUELER CAN WE GET??????????