Shruti Sharma

Sarbajaya Bhattacharya

Editor

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“I got six
pack abs just like that, I have never exercised. And look at Shahbaz’s biceps!”
says  young Adil, laughing as he points
to his co-worker. 

Mohammad
Adil and Shabaaz Ansari are workers in Meerut’s gym and fitness equipment
industry, and they lift more weights in a day than gym goers do in a week. This
heavy lifting is not a fitness aim, but an important livelihood available to
young men from Muslim families in Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh. In fact, this
entire district in western UP is a hub for sports goods’ production. 

“Just a few
days ago,” says Mohammad Saqib, “the boys were doing a photoshoot to compare
their biceps and abs [abdominal muscles].” An entrepreneur, the 30-year-old
Saqib is sitting behind the counter in his family’s rented gym equipment
showroom on Suraj Kund Road, a kilometre-long stretch that is the centre of the
sports goods market in Meerut. 

“From a
simple dumbbell used by homemakers to complicated setups used by sports
professionals, everybody wants gym and fitness equipment today,” he adds. 

As we speak, several electric
three-wheelers (locally known as mini metro) enter and exit the busy road,
loaded with iron rods and pipes, as well as finished products like a home gym
and iron bars.  “Gym machines are made in
parts and assembled later,” explains Saqib as he watches the traffic of iron
goods through the glass door of the showroom.

Meerut’s
pole position for iron works is not new. “The city is world famous for its kainchi [scissor] industry,” Saqib tells
PARI. In 2013, Meerut’s scissors, an industry almost three centuries old, made
the cut for a Geographical Indications (GI) tag.

Manufacturing
gym equipment in Meerut though has a more recent history, dating back to the
early 1990s. “Punjabi entrepreneurs and a few other well-established local
firms in the district’s sports goods industry were the ones to take the lead,”
Saqib says. “Skilled iron-workers were already here and raw materials like
recycled iron pipes, rods and sheets for gym equipment-making were also easily
available in the loha mandi [wholesale
raw material marketplace] in the city.” 

Most of the
ironsmiths and iron-casting workers (lohe
ki dhalai karne waale) are Muslim and come from low-income households. “The
family’s eldest male child gets trained at a very young age,” Saqib says.
“Members of the Saifi / Lohar (Other Backward Class) sub-caste are believed to
be highly skilled in this occupation,” he adds. Saqib’s family belongs to the
Ansari community, a Muslim sub-caste of weavers, listed as OBC in the state. 

“Many units
are located in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods like Islamabad, Zakir Hussain
Colony, Lisadi Gate and Zaidi Farm,” says Saqib. Meerut district has a Muslim
population of around 34 per cent – the seventh highest in the state (Census
2011). 

The largely Muslim profile of the iron workers
here is not peculiar to Meerut alone. As per the 2006 Report on the Social,
Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India (<a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/social-economic-and-educational-status-of-the-muslim-community-of-india/">Sachar Committee
Report</a>),
fabricated metal products are amongst the three manufacturing segments in which
a relatively large proportion of workers are Muslim.

Saqib and
his brothers Mohammad Nazim and Mohammad Asim, both in their mid-thirties,
started off as workers in the city&#39;s iron industries. They were young boys when
their father’s wholesale fabric business suffered heavy losses in the early
2000s, and so they went to work. 

Asim started making dumbbell plates at home in Ahmed
Nagar locality while Nazim worked in an auto parts manufacturing business.
Saqib worked as a helper to master karigar
Fakhruddin Ali Saifi in a metal fabrication karkhana
(factory). “He
taught me how to make different kinds of structures like gym equipment, jhoole [swings] and jali gates [lattice-work gates] by cutting, bending, welding and
assembling metals,” Saqib says. 

Now, the
brothers run their own fitness and gym equipment-making factory in the village
of Tatina Sani, a small settlement located around nine kilometers from their
showroom in the city. Meerut is a hub for iron artifacts manufacturing as well
– tools, scissors and iron furniture are amongst the main items exported from
the district (Census 2011).

“There are
many many skilled iron-workers in Meerut who know much more than me. The only
difference is that I have been able to become an employer from a labourer, and
most have not,” says Saqib.


His journey
was made possible due to an opportunity he got to pursue a Masters in Computer
Applications (MCA) with the money his brothers had saved up. “My brothers were
hesitant at first, but also confident that the knowledge I had gained in my MCA
would help us in setting up our own business in the established gym and fitness
equipment industry,” Saqib says.

“For gym
equipment, metal parts need to be cut, welded, buffed, finished, painted,
powder coated and packed. Smaller parts are later assembled and fitted
together,” Saqib explains as we move around the factory. “A lay person will not
understand which part is being made because they have only seen the fitted and
fancy equipment in an airconditioned place.”

The gyms he
is describing are a far cry from the factory floor we are in. Housed in a
structure with three walls and tin sheds overhead, the factory in Tatina Sani
is segregated into three work zones – the fabrication area, the painting area
and the packing area. The open end allows for some air circulation – a critical
need for the long months of summer when temperatures hover around 40 and even
rise above 45 degrees Celsius. 

As we walk
around the shop floor, we need to pay special attention to where we step. 

Iron rods
and pipes measuring 15 feet in length, solid iron cylindrical lengths weighing
more than 400 kilograms, dense and flat metal sheets used for cutting out
weight plates, electrically operated large machines and gym equipment in
various stages of production are all over the floor. There is a narrow,
unmarked trail, but miss it and you run the risk of a painful cut from a sharp
edge and even a broken bone from something heavy falling on your feet. 

Amidst all
of this unmoving brown, grey and black of heavy material, the only movement and
brightness comes from the workers. Dressed in colourful t-shirts, they are
operating electric machines that radiate sparks when brought in contact with
metal.

Mohammad
Asif is the only worker here from Tatina Sani; others come from neighbourhoods
in and around Meerut city. “I have been working here for two and a half months,
but this is not my first job. I used to work in another gym machine factory
before this,” says 18-year-old Asif, who is the iron pipe cutting expert.
Pulling out the 15 feet long pipes from the unkempt pile, he pushes them along
the empty floor on his left before placing them on the pipe-cutting machine one
by one. He uses an inch tape to mark parts where cuts have to be made based on
the length and design requirements for the gym equipment in-making. 

“My father
drives an auto that he doesn’t own,” Asif continues, “his earnings are not
enough so I had to start working as soon as I could.” He earns a monthly wage
of Rs. 6,500.    

In another
part of the factory, Mohammad Naushad is slicing a solid iron cylindrical piece
on a band saw-cutting machine. The 32-year-old is also the lathe machine
technician here and has been working with Asim since 2006.  “All of these will be attached to different
kinds of gym equipment for lifting,” Naushad says, pointing to several
disc-shaped iron pieces at his station which are arranged on top of one another
based on their weight. Naushad earns Rs. 16,000 per month. 

Left of
Naushad’s workstation sit Mohammad Asif Saifi, 42, and Amir Ansari, 27, who are
putting together an eight station multi-gym which is part of a consignment that
has to be delivered to an army camp in Kupwara (Jammu and Kashmir).

The company’s clients include Indian Army
establishments in Srinagar and Katra (J&amp;K), Ambala (Haryana), Bikaner
(Rajasthan) and Shillong (Meghalaya) and “the list for private gym setups range
from states like Manipur to Kerala. We export to Nepal and Bhutan as well,”
Saqib adds.

The two are
arc welding specialists and work on making smaller parts as well as the
assembly of larger equipment. They earn roughly Rs. 50-60,000 a month depending
on the orders and number of machines they can make. 

“The arc
welding machine has a thin electrode in front which penetrates through thick
iron and melts it,” Amir explains,
and adds, “during the process of joining two pieces of metal, the electrode has
to be manually manipulated with a steady hand, which makes it a difficult skill
to learn and master.” 

“Amir and
Asif work on theka [contract],” Saqib
explains their wage structure, “the tasks that require the highest skill are
done on theka unlike those requiring
fewer skills. The experts are high in demand and have a bargaining power for
better wages,” he adds.  

Suddenly,
the glow around the shop floor dims. There is a power cut; work stalls for a
few seconds while the factory’s generator is switched on. To make themselves
heard over the noise of the generator as well as the electrical machines, workers
are now shouting at the top of their voices. 

At the next
workstation, Ibad Salmani, 21, is strengthening the joints of gym equipment
parts with a Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welder. “The iron will melt if you don’t
know the different temperatures at which thin and thick pieces have to be
welded,” Ibad says. He earns Rs. 10,000 a month. 

Bending down to work on the metal piece, Ibad
uses a hand shield to protect his eyes and arms from the sparks generated in
the process. “We have all the protective gear. Workers use them according to
their own assessment of what is safe, unsafe, convenient and inconvenient,”
Saqib says.

“Our fingers
get burnt; iron pipes fall on our feet. Cuts are ordinary injuries,” Asif Saifi
says, and adds nonchalantly, “we are used to it since our childhood. Quitting
this work is not an option for us.”

The oldest karigar Babu Khan, 60, covers his
forearms with pieces of cotton cloth and ties a larger piece around his waist
to protect his torso and legs from the sparks. “I used to do iron rod welding
when I was younger in another gym equipment factory, but now I undertake the
task of buffing,” he says. 

“Buffing is
the last technical process which removes abrasions that have come about on the
metal surface in the processes of cutting and welding,” Saqib explains. Babu
earns a monthly wage of Rs 10,000. 

After the
surfaces have been smoothened, Shakir Ansari, 45, takes charge of applying body
filler putty to cover the joints of equipment parts and smoothens them with regmal (sand paper).  Shakir is Saqib’s brother-in-law and has been
working here for six years. He works on theka
and earns up to Rs 50,000 a month. “I had my own manufacturing business of iron
nozzles for diesel-run autos. But after Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) autos
entered the market, my work collapsed completely,” he says. 

Once Shakir
finishes by applying primer and paint on the equipment, it is mechanically
powder-coated, “which makes it durable and rust-free,” Saqib explains.

All the
newly created equipment parts are separately packed in an area close to the
gate from where they are loaded onto trucks for transportation. The team of
packers and fitters Mohammad Adil, Sameer Abbasi, Mohsin Qureshi and Shahbaz
Ansari are between 17–18 years of age and they each earn Rs 6,500 a month. 

The truck to
Kupwara for the army gym has arrived and they need to begin loading it.  

“Wherever
the order goes by truck, we go by train for assembling the equipment,” Sameer
says, and adds, “because of this work only, we have been able to see the hills,
the oceans and the desert.” This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).

‘I got six pack abs just like that’

’ورزش کیے بغیر میرے سکس پیک ایبس ہیں‘

‘నాకు సిక్స్ ప్యాక్ కండలు అలా వచ్చేశాయంతే’

‘இப்படித்தான் எனக்கு சிக்ஸ் பேக் உடற்கட்டு வந்தது’

‘ਦੇਖੋ ਬਗ਼ੈਰ ਜਿਮ ਲਾਇਆਂ ਵੀ ਮੇਰੇ ਸਿਕਸ ਪੈਕਸ ਐਬਸ ਨੇ’

‘ଏମିତି ମୋର ସିକ୍ସ ପ୍ୟାକ୍‌ ଆବ୍ସ ହୋଇଯାଇଛି’

‘हे सिक्स पॅक अगदी सहज तयार झालेत’

'എനിക്ക് സിക്സ് പാക്ക് സ്വാഭാവികമായി ഉണ്ടായതാണ്'

'ನನ್ನ ದೇಹದಲ್ಲಿ ತನ್ನಂತಾನೆ ಸಿಕ್ಸ್‌ ಪ್ಯಾಕ್‌ ಮೂಡಿದೆ'

'મારે તો વગર કસરતે સિક્સ પેક એબ્સ છે'

‘मोर त अइसनेच सिक्स पैक एब्स हवय’

'बिना कसरते हमार सिक्स पैक बन गइल'

‘ব্যায়াম-ট্যায়াম ছাড়াই সিক্স প্যাক অ্যাব্স হয়েছে আমার!’

‘ছিক্স পেক এবচ্ এনেয়ে আহি গ’ল’

'बिना एक्सरसाइज़ किए मेरे सिक्स पैक एब्स हैं'

Meerut

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‘I got six pack abs just like that’

For young Muslim men from low income households in Meerut, metal fabrication of fitness and gym equipment is a crucial livelihood option. They work in factories here where they cut, weld, buff, finish, paint, powder-coat and pack metal parts that are later assembled and fitted together

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