M. Palani Kumar

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White Town, Puducherry’s
French Quarter, is perhaps the most sought-after tourist destination in the
union territory. With beautiful and palatial houses converted into heritage
hotels, restaurants and art galleries, this is an elite locality where some French
families continue to live. It retains an old-world charm and is also cleaner
than other parts of Puducherry. How can ‘White’ Town be impure? 

But behind its
façade of cleanliness, beneath the impeccable surface, lies the hard labour of
sanitation workers – the kind that Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi celebrates Women’s
Day with. Yet the celebration brings no change in their lives. The women
continue to sweep through the nights, as silently as possible – readying the
streets of White Town for the tourists the next day. Night life has a different
meaning for them. They toil on the roads, collect trash and keep the town
clean.

They are not
direct employees of the Pondicherry Municipality – which has outsourced most
such work to private agencies. The women in the photos are contract labourers –
part of the nearly 1,000 engaged in this work across Puducherry. They earn, on
average, around Rs. 6,200 a month each. While there are three shifts, the women
in the photographs are almost always on the night shift.

They first caught
my attention on a sleepless night in White Town where I had gone for a film shoot. Each day of the week that I stayed there, I observed their work, stunned by how
they kept the colony clean, struck by the irony that pushed them to do it. I
followed them through the nights, as unobtrusively as possible, yet driven by
emotion to record their lives. Nights in India might have become unsafe for
many women, but the garbage cleaners here go about their work from midnight to dawn without a trace of security.

Night life in the darkness of White Town

শুভ্ৰ চহৰৰ নৈশ কৰ্মী

ଗୋରା ସହରର ଅନ୍ଧାରରେ ରାତ୍ରିର ଜୀବନ

வைட்  டவுனின் இருளில் இரவு வாழ்க்கை

Puducherry

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Night life in the darkness of White Town

Puducherry’s cleanliness rests on women casual labourers who sweep its streets at night

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