THE LIVING FORKLIFTS: Workers of Kolay Market
Every morning, Vijender Roy wakes up at 6am sharp. The whole day is ahead in front of him. He lives in a room in a Beleghata slum in North Calcutta along with six other men all hailing from Motihari in Bihar. It takes around two hours for him to take his bath, worship the gods, eat his food and get ready for the day. By 8am, he has already set out for Kolay Market along with his friends who also work as laborers there.
Kolay Market is the largest wholesale vegetable market of Calcutta. The city receives the majority of its vegetable supply from the rural areas in this market. The market never sleeps. Supplies keep coming in. Trucks from far flung places in Bengal line up in hundreds outside Kolay Market, carrying vegetables in: potatoes, onions, cabbages, cauliflowers, eggplants, gourds, pumpkins and anything else that is available in the season. Vijender Roy and his friends start unloading the shipments from the trucks and the carts from 9am sharp and deliver them to the wholesalers. Around 50kg each at a time. Twelve hours a day. I ask Sanjay Roy about how much he makes each day. ‘It varies. It’s never fixed. If I am lucky and if I am in the best of my health, I can make anything from Rs. 150 to Rs. 250 ($3to $6). Sometimes, it is more. At times, much less.’ I ask him how much weight he usually carries daily. He laughs out, ‘That’s also not fixed. But around 400kg, I think.’
Pramodh Singh is forty-five. He has been involved in this work since he was twelve years old. ‘I started early. I was the eldest amongst the siblings and after my father retired from this work, I came here to start working in the Kolay Market. Back then of course, I used to carry much lighter loads. Twenty kilograms at a time. Sometimes a little more. With time, the load increased. Now, I can easily carry forty-five to fifty kilograms at one go. It’s no big deal.’ I ask him when he plans to retire. ‘I’ll work as long as possible. As long as they’re going to employ me. And that’s not in my hands.’
I find Mangu Yadav taking a break. He knows me. We’ve had a chat a few days back. He was the first one I interviewed. He smiles and says, ‘Just called home this morning. My wife gave birth to a boy two days back.’
Most of the laborers of Kolay Market are from Bihar; many of them hailing from East Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Saran districts of the state. Acute poverty in the rural areas, crop failure and general unemployment has forced generations of Biharis into migrations in different corners of the country. Ram Babu Roy is thirty-four years old. ‘Most of the men in our villages work in different parts of India. In our family, working in Calcutta is a tradition. When I will retire, my son will start from where I left.’
I ask Ram Babu Roy whether he visits his village often. ‘No, no! Not frequently!’ he says, ‘Once in a year. Unless there’s bad news from-‘
Ram is interrupted by one of his friends, who yell at him: ‘Come here! Give us a hand!’ He rushes to help a gang of men trying to lift a shipment weighing 150kg onto the heads of three men who will collectively carry it to a wholesaler inside the market.
