There is one beautiful, happening bus stop on Baner Road in Pune, where I wait for my office bus. At the same spot, there are always lots of building helpers who I guess work on daily wages and I am specifically talking about female counterparts.
After a few days, we somehow started conversing; rather it was me who took the initiative. I was very curious about something unusual. The “points to ponder” of these ladies includes many and they are:
- They are always traveling, working, moving-around in group(s),
- Accompanied with wire basket, generally on their head, having
o home cooked food for the entire family, sufficient for the day
o huge water bottles, again for family
- Carrying kid(s) of all ages alongside,
- Constantly talking with each other, generally in their local lingo,
- To name a few…
Even though they are habituated to lift and carry huge amount of weight (bricks, cement mix, sand etc) on their head throughout the day, for years, but I felt it inhuman. At the same time another unkind practice is to carry food, water and kids all the time. Most of these females carry wire basket full of food Tiffin’s and water bottles on their head. I mean to say, just think of how many hours of heavy weight on their head. This is the exactly the point / trigger / concern of my conversation with them (the group of Lamani ladies). Consistently for a few days I was observing; that, couple of these females are using sack on their back instead of wired basket. You read it absolutely right, once again, sack on their back instead of the wire basket on head. I was surprised, shocked, and curious to see that, hence started conversing.
I asked them the reason behind use of sack, and congratulated them for this shift of bag type.
They were also happy that I have observed the above mentioned change in them, rather their bag type. They started telling me in bits and pieces, that how badly their head aches along with shoulders, by constantly lifting heavy weight on their head. They also admitted that even though we are born to do this kind of job and doing it consistently for years now, but still in this era we are suffering. My next question was, “In this era, means?” To my surprise they said, we don’t think vegetables, water, and other food grains are of good quality these days. Even though we do lot of physical activities, we find our food intake different than previous years (as compared to previous years). Food and water quality is deteriorating. That might be the reason for aches and pains. Hence we saw and observed that many of you, use the bag, (she was pointing to my sack actually), said she. She continued, hence we thought of buying such a bag, so that we will have less weight to lift on our head, during travelling from our houses to building premises.
I was astonished to listen to those purely thoughtful words. I did mention the innovative way of thinking and applying their minds. To that they replied, “We have to think Didi, we don’t like to be in pain so early, due to this load on head. Hence requested our in charge on building site also for some trolley to move brick and other things…………..”, and our conversation continues…… I don’t think they have ever been to school, and had formal education. I really appreciate these Lamani Women’s observation power, and readiness to change according to generation / requirement.
My salute to Womanhood, once again from this remarkable perspective. A new learning for me, truly!!
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