Suman Parbat

Sinchita Parbat

Sharmila Joshi

Text Editor

large_01-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_1478.jpg

medium_01-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_1478.jpg

small_01-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_1478.jpg

thumbnail_01-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_1478.jpg

01-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_1478.jpg

Pili Pardhi, who is in her early 50s, waits for a customer outside the gate of a hotel  on Kasturba Road. It is 9 a.m. – when the checkout time starts at the hotels. Her daughter-in-law Aruna is there too. Both women, as well as Pili’s son, work as porters in Matheran.
 As does Jaya Pedhkar. Like the others, Jaya, in her mid-30s, carries 10 to 40 kilos of luggage on her head 3-4 times a day between the hotels and the Dasturi parking lot –  some 3.5 kilometres from Matheran’s main market, and even further from some of the hotels located higher up the hill station.

Jaya_and_Pili_Headporters.jpg

Lakshmi Pardhi, another porter in Matheran, in her late 40s, says she earns Rs. 250-300 per trip. On weekends, when the tourists are many, the porters can get 3-4 trips in a day. On weekdays, the number of customers falls, as does the luggage-carrying rate – to around Rs. 200 per trip.
 In Matheran, a popular tourist destination in Raigad district, Maharashtra, vehicles are not allowed after the Dasturi parking point. This means visitors either carry their own luggage to and from the hotels, or they hire porters like Pili, Jaya and Lakshmi.
 
 The nearest railway station from Matheran is Neral. A narrow gauge train service between the two places was  suspended in May 2016  after two derailments. With cars not allowed inside Matheran, there is an army at Dasturi – of horses,
 <a id="2565" linktype="page">
 horsekeepers
 </a>
 , hand-pulled rickshaws and headporters.

02_SM_Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills_IMG_0460.jpg

All the porters have identity cards issued by the Matheran police. Each card has a  serial number. Lakshmi’s son estimates there are around 300 porters in Matheran, 100 of them women.  Lakshmi’s card number is 90. She waits for her turn in front of the counter at Dasturi, where visitors have to buy tickets to enter Matheran. The man at the counter calls out when her number is approaching. Sometimes, customers call her directly.
 Most of the porters here live in villages nearby.  Lakshmi comes to Matheran from Jummapatti hamlet, around 4.5 kilometres from Dasturi. Pili comes from a village three kilometres away.
 
 Jaya lives in the staff quarters of a hotel in Matheran. She works at the hotel along with her sister-in-law – they clean the dishes and together earn Rs. 4,000 a month. Jaya’s family lives in Tepachiwadi, a hamlet near Karjat, and she is the only earning member. So after the dishes for the morning are done, she tries to get a trip or two as headporter during the afternoons.

04-SM-Heavy_lifting_in_the_hills-IMG_0464.jpg

Heavy lifting in the hills

பெண் சுமை தூக்கும் தொழிலாளர்களின் கடுமையான மலைப்பாதை பயணங்கள்

ପର୍ଯ୍ୟଟକଙ୍କ ଲଗେଜ୍ ଦେଉଛି ଜୀବନଜୀବିକା

পাহাড়ের মোটবাহক মহিলা শ্রমিকেরা

म्हणे बाया नाजूक असतात

पहाड़ पर भारी सामान की ढुलाई

پہاڑ پر بھاری سامان کی ڈھلائی

ಬೆಟ್ಟದುದ್ದಕ್ಕೂ ಭಾರ ಹೊತ್ತು

পাহাৰত ভাৰ উত্তোলন

Matheran

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>

Heavy lifting in the hills

The women porters of Matheran in Maharashtra carry over 100 kilograms of luggage on their heads every day in the tourist season, and also walk for kilometres to work from their villages

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