Mamta Pared

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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“You must have celebrated the festival.
What about us? There is hardly any work. Where will the money come from?” Sitting
at her doorstep, Soni Wagh, 60, asked bluntly,
looking at me intently. People gathered around tried to signal to her to keep
quiet. But Soni’s words were not just for herself – her utterances contained
the reality of life in her entire hamlet. No one could hide that. It was early November, Diwali had just got over. But no house in the pada
had any lanterns. There were no decorative lights. No dwelling in Botyachi Wadi was adorned
with flowers like some of the city homes during Diwali. 

The
wadi
was silent. The only sound was the echoes of children playing in the
open courtyards. Their feet smeared in dust. Their clothes frayed and worn. Garments
with broken buttons covered some of them only partially. In one corner of a
courtyard, 5 or 6 girls, 8 to 9 years
old, were playing ‘house-house’. Arranged before them were aluminium and
steel vessels from their home’s kitchens. A torn stretch of cloth tied to four
sticks fixed in the ground served as a cradle for a baby. 

A
girl sitting close by was holding the baby, a few months old, on her lap and
watching the others at play. A boy was sitting next to her. When I approached,
they got up to leave. The girl stopped when she sensed that I wanted to ask her
something. “Do you go to school?” The answer was no. Anita Dive, 9, had dropped
out of school after Class 1. Why not? “I have to look after the baby. How can I
go to school? My family goes to the brick kilns for work.”

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The
boy sitting beside her, Kalu Savara, had the same story to tell. He too dropped out of school after Class 1. Another girl who came and stood nearby, Kalu Valvi, said, “I attend school during rains and in the summer I go to the kiln
with my family.”

Like
Kalu Valvi’s family, many in this hamlet of 30-35 Katkari Adivasi households, in Gomghar village, located 30 kilometres from Mokhada
town in Palghar district of Maharashtra, migrate for work every year. 

With
the mere mention of school, an angry neighbour, Budha Wagh, around 65 years
old, blurted out: “You give us work or provide money. Do something about our
hunger.” 

“There is no farming. There are no other work
options. We have to migrate to feed ourselves,” said Kashinath Baraf, 55,
trying to calm down Budha. Every year in the monsoon, by July, he too leaves
for Shirdi to work on nearby stone crushing sites. Then after Diwali, around
the end of October, till the month of May, he migrates to Kharbav town in Bhiwandi taluka
of Thane district to work at brick kilns. 

When they
migrate, almost everyone from this hamlet carries with them the burden of
loans. And to repay their debts, they have to leave their homes every year in
search of work. Many don’t know how much they earn every year. “We have not
settled our accounts for three years,” said 50-year-old Leela Valvi. “We have
been working there [in Ulhasnagar] for many years. I had taken an advance of 30,000
rupees [from the brick kiln owner] for my daughter’s wedding. It’s not yet been
repaid. Many times, we have quelled our hungry stomachs with food received on
charity. If we try and ask for the
accounts, we get beaten up.”

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Leela
was showing me her house – cement and bricks, one room partitioned into two (built under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana). In Botyachi Wadi, barring a few pucca houses built under this government housing scheme, the other dwellings are bare huts. “We too had just a hut,” Leela
said, pointing to a small neighbouring hut made of straw, mud and local wood. Inside her new windowless house, it was dark even at noon. Things were scattered around the chulha. “There is nothing in my house. Only this much rice is left,”  she said, opening a drum kept in a corner to show me. The grain had reached the bottom.

Like
the others, Bhika Raja Dive, 60, also has a debt, of Rs. 13,000. “I had taken
an advance for the engagement of my son,” he said. Around Dussehra, in early
October, the seth
took the family to Ulhasnagar to work at a brick kiln. But with the
rain continuing, work was stalled. So the seth sent them to work on the nearby paddy
fields of a land-owner he knows well. He kept a part of the Rs. 400 daily wages
they received from this work. When Diwali was approaching, Bhika’s family
needed money for the fare to return to Botyachi Wadi. The seth did not give them even this
amount. They saved some money doing whatever work they could find. And then, just
as Diwali got over, the seth returned to the hamlet [to take them away
again for work]. 

By
then, the family had been allotted a house under the state scheme, so they
had to stay back to build the structure. But they were helpless in the face of
the debt. “The seth
demanded that I repay his debt. But I stayed back for the house. He
took my wife Leela and my two daughters and [21-year-old] son along,” Bhika spoke
sorrowfully, standing beside his hut. The elder daughter is 12 and the younger
one is just 8 years old.

And then I was stunned by Gorakh Valvi’s
story. He told me that once, when an bull owned by the brick kiln owner died, he
insisted all the male labourers working at the kiln must cut their hair as a
mark of mourning. Nobody could dare refuse, such was his power. Valvi also told
me that if the bricks on the kiln get wet due to untimely rain, the labourers
don’t get paid for making those bricks. “We die with the hard work and we
die even if we don’t get the money,” he said. Despite his uphill circumstances, Gorakh managed
to study till Class 10. Still, like many others here, he too has to work on the
brick kilns.

Like him, Lata Dive and Sunil Mukne too managed to study till Class 10. But how will we study further, they ask. They cannot afford higher education and whatever schooling they have will not get them any employment. Most of the children in this hamlet discontinue schooling after a year or two. The reasons for this are invariably poverty and migration.

There
is darkness in many of their homes and no food other than some rice. In such a
situation, malnourishment will follow. Young girls are passing their days
caring for their younger siblings. After they are married, they are bound to
migrate with their new families. Where do they stand in this competitive world
when their struggles for survival leave no space to even dream? The rays of
hopes and dreams are yet to enter their lives. When will they reach here? That
question remains. Translated from Marathi by Medha Kale.

'Do something about our hunger'

‘আমাদের খিদের কিছু সুরাহা কর’

‘आमच्या भुकेचं काहीतरी करा!’

‘আমাৰ পেটৰ ভোক গুচোৱাৰ উপায় দিয়ক’

எங்களது பசிக்கு ஏதாவது செய்யுங்கள்

‘हमारी भूख मिटाने के लिए कुछ करें’

’ہماری بھوک مٹانے کے لیے کچھ کریں‘

‘ଆମ କ୍ଷୁଧା ନିବାରଣ ପାଇଁ କିଛି କର’

Gomghar

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'Do something about our hunger'

For the Katkari Adivasis of Botyachi Wadi hamlet in Palghar district, education remains a distant dream, food is scarce, debt an ever-present reality – and migrating to work at brick kilns a recurring compulsion

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