Friday, February 20, 2009

Little hopes! (Just an observation)

I "hope" the title of the post will match to the post. Writing something that I've been observing over sometime now. There is one stop which is at a walking distance to my house, its a chowk actually. On 6 out of 7 days the part of my daily routine is to drop my sister there in the morning and then pick her in the afternoon.
That spot or chowk is somewhat different from others in a sense that, its also a stop for the laborers(mazdoor). On Daily basis a huge number of laborers gather there excluding some that prefer waiting in the nearby market.
I go there as early as 8am and mostly find hustling and bustling among them as whenever they see a stopping motorbike or vehicle they gather around them hoping to get some work for day. Few of them could be seen rushing towards such people without caring that they are on road or caring for themselves with just one thing in mind to find the livelihood for them and their family. Well will come back to the morning latter.
When i go in the afternoon at around 1pm i could see no activity left. At that time almost half of them have gone to their work with others lying in the shade of trees, few still waiting for any work and few leaving in despair. The thing that irritates me most is the age of few of those laborers i.e how bad our economical system is, that in the age when they should be playing and passing time with the grandchildren and resting at home they are waiting for the work. The things gets further severe in summers in our part when the temperature goes around 50 degree Celsius.
Even with all those sort of hardships these people are not paid well. Me myself on many occasion have heard people bargaining with them and settling a lumpsum amount if they take 3 or 4 laborers with them, which of course is always less then the individual amount they could have received.
Seen them working during the night. There are no labor rules being followed as well. I think it was Bhutto who crafted labor laws which could now be only found in the worn off pages of some well mounted book placed in somewhere cupboard.
At morning after some days i started to observe something really strange, i.e almost everyday i used to find a "Naan"(bread) in the hands of almost every laborer. There was a "naan channe wala" at the walking distance. I thought they buy it from there as they couldn't have their breakfast that early but it wasn't the case as after few days the mystery(sort of) resolved. There was a person who used to bring two to three packs of Naans(one has a total of 50 i guess) and something to eat with them. Don't know why he was doing this as part of his daily routine. Must be getting some bliss out of this activity or don't know. One can say that it isn't anything noticeable but don't know why I found it something really great as one can't say how many of them could have slept the last night without eating anything especially those who failed to find anywork and things like that.
It was just an observation but these things do pinch when sitting idle and thinking or when i pass that place.

PS: One thing that i forgot to mention was that i couldn't see the face of that person who used to come up with the breakfast as he had everytime covered his face with some sort of veil(gents chader) etc.

5 comments:

Uni said...

Hey that's really observant Masha Allah.

It's very sad when we pass these laborers who are sitting hopefully like that.. but the naan story is amazing :)

Zohaib Aslam said...

Thanks for reading ....
Yeah that naan thing is amazing ... I've edited my post a little as i forgot to tell that i never saw the face of that person as he used to cover it up with something every time he was there.

Uni said...

Wow... must be getting sooo much sawab MA..

InspireMe said...

I liked reading this post...And reading the naan part reminded me a story in US (The News wala) way way way back that I read and its central idea was that helping others in their needs or those who are in trouble is an immensely satisfying experience..
It was about a boy who saves money for buying some toy or something but then finds somebody in need and instead gives all the saved money to the person in need and then realises that the feeling is an exceedingly satisfying one....(I just remembered the gist now, read wayyyy back )...
And the labours waiting and hoping to get any work in desperation is very common perhaps across the country...I have observed this in islamabad and it is immensely moving expecially when one starts thinking about the lil kids these men struggling for survival will have...I wish we could be a welfare state one day :(

Zohaib Aslam said...

@ Benzene
Don't know how i missed your comment. Today just saw and its been ages. My apologies for such a late comment from my side...

Really beautiful story ... and surely such feelings are very satisfying if one thinks so ....

"I wish we could be a welfare state one day :("
InshAllah the days are not far when we'll be one such state ... Its just how we do things at individual level and collectively!
Thank you very much for reading and commenting!