Reina Tayyibji

Author

Siddhita Sonavane

Editor

large_HP-COVER-IMAGE-RT-Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad.jpg

medium_HP-COVER-IMAGE-RT-Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad.jpg

small_HP-COVER-IMAGE-RT-Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad.jpg

thumbnail_HP-COVER-IMAGE-RT-Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-RT-Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad.jpg

“My name is Tulsibhai Naranbhai, but if you need to find me, you’ll have to say ‘call Bachchan’. That’s how everyone knows me,” says Tulsibhai, on why he is fondly called by the name of a film superstar.&nbsp;The 60-year-old lives with his son Tanubhai on a footpath near Gulbai Tekra, an open settlement in Ahmedabad. His wife passed away soon after Tanubhai’s birth. “My grandmother brought me up. She is still alive and over a hundred years old,” Tanubhai, now in his thirties, tells us.&nbsp;The father and son collect waste from nine in the morning till nine at night, and sell it to bhangarwalas&nbsp;(scrap dealers) in Memnagar&nbsp;— a taluka in the city where waste-pickers sell their collections by the kilogram.On the day this reporter met them, they had collected about four kilos of plastic bottles and a kilo of cardboard, working since two in the afternoon. That earned them Rs. 110 from scrap dealers. “The summer was too hot this time,” says Tulsibhai, “we would fall sick. We used the cardboard we picked up to fan ourselves in the heat during the day.”

Covering roughly five kilometres between Vastrapur, Memnagar, and Naranpura every day, the father and son have been collecting and selling waste for over seven years. During the monsoon months when picking waste becomes even more difficult, the duo makes idols&nbsp;for the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, which comes after the season.“I used to have a job of making and selling things like chains, rings, and metal and pearl pieces. Since the owner left town, the shop was shut and I lost the job.” says Tulsibhai. “Earlier, I used to travel everywhere – Gokul, Mathura, Dwarka to deliver these goods. Now this [waste-picking] is the work I have to do,” he says.As does 75-year-old Kamuben Vaghela who lives in Naranpura. Once a domestic worker, she too has turned to waste-picking to manage her five grandchildren that she is bringing up on her own – her son and daughter-in-law passed away in 2023.&nbsp;The grandmother works from morning to evening, returning home briefly in the afternoon to feed the young children, including two granddaughters who are visually impaired. Occasionally she does additional cleaning work to earn a few extra rupees.None of the children go to school. “Who will drop and pick them up?” she asks. “The municipality’s school is far away and they can’t go on their own.”&nbsp;

Waste pickers are vulnerable to health hazards including increased chances of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and dermatological diseases to higher risks of infected cuts and animal bites. India has an estimated four million workers engaged in the waste management sector, according to this<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://clra.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/f6c774eb-e7d6-4d21-ac84-8d3aaae9b6e2.pdf"> 2023 study</a>.Forty-year-old Reetarben also collects waste in the city. She says, “On some days, I can’t even take a bath. You tell me&nbsp;– can a person do such work and go to sleep without a bath? On those days, I can’t even sleep. I feel the dirt on my body.”&nbsp;She lives on a footpath in Naranpura. The public bathroom she sometimes uses to take a bath and wash her clothes costs Rs. 10 per use.&nbsp;“I can barely make enough to have food.” Unwrapping a packet of chips tied into her saree, she says, “I haven’t eaten a meal in three days. My sahib found out, so he bought me this packet of chips.”

She points to multiple bruises on her arms, “Everyone in the neighbourhood knows that my husband beats me. But they can’t do anything. He gets drunk and beats me, hits me with vessels.”“She earns the money but her husband spends it on alcohol. Is that fair?” says Shardaben, who is Reetarben’s 70-year-old neighbour and another waste-picker.“I am looking for any other work I can do. If I find something good enough, I can get away from my husband. I have all of Ahmedabad, why shouldn’t I?” says Reetarben.“But we have to do this work,” Shardaben says, “we are harijan, this is the work we do.”

Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad

احمد آباد کے کباڑ چننے والے

அகமதாபாத் குப்பை கேசரிப்பு

कचरा के पचरा में पड़ल जिनगी 

ଅହମ୍ମଦାବାଦରେ ଅଳିଆ ଗୋଟାଇବା

ਅਹਿਮਦਾਬਾਦ ਵਿੱਚ ਜ਼ਿੰਦਗੀ ਨੂੰ ਸਮੇਟਦਿਆਂ 

അഹമ്മദാബാദിൽ ജീവിതം പെറുക്കിക്കൂട്ടുന്നവർ

ಅಹಮದಾಬಾದಿನ ಚಿಂದಿ ಆಯುವವರ ಕತೆ

अहमदाबाद के कचरा बीनने वाले कामगार

અમદાવાદના ફેંક્યું વીણનારા

আহমেদাবাদৰ আৱৰ্জনা সংগ্ৰকাৰীসকল

স্বচ্ছ শহরে বর্জ্য কুড়িয়ে চলা জীবন 

Ahmedabad

medium_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE.jpg

small_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE.jpg

thumbnail_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE.jpg

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE.jpg

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Picking up the pieces in Ahmedabad

People who collect waste are vulnerable to health hazards and likely to be living in poor conditions without basic rights, as seen in this city

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit