The Other Side

I am not an enthusiastic traveler and I have traveled very less until I was 24. Of them, trips to sringeri, a pilgrim spot in Karnataka, were memorable ones. One such trip was by car, when I was studying 11th standard. This story is about that car driver who helped me understanding social issues from totally different perspective.

The car driver was from sivakasi, the “kutty japan” of India. We all know that Sivakasi is famous for fire works industry and printing technology. If we forget the fact, that these industries employ a large number of children to work in hazardous conditions, we can hail their contribution in our country’s growth. I wanted to discuss these things to him to get to know the ground reality about child labor in sivakasi.

After I have had befriended him by talking all sundries, I slowly started asking about his family. He said he had a wife and a kid of 3 years old. He also said his wife was working in fire works industry. I asked him if it was true that the employers of such industries employ children. He said that it was true and he did not see anything wrong in that.

Then I told him about a fire accident in one such industry, Where so many kids and women died because of an accidental explosion. The social worker who visited the site immediately after the explosion, narrated about death of a baby. The baby was laid in a “thottil” out of the building and it died not because of the fire injuries, but because of “Noise” created by the huge explosion and they were still searching for the mother of that baby without knowing whether she was dead or alive. I told him how he could justify such horrible incidents.

After listening to this story, with an expressionless voice, he told “These kinds of social workers spoil our lives”. I gave him a puzzled look. He continued “We have only fire industries to support our lives; I have worked there when I was boy until I became driver. If not for the industry, our family would not have survived. Do you know one thing? My wife too was working there in that site. She jumped over the wall and escaped that day. She is pregnant now and still works in same industry. Because there is no other way to make the ends meet. In any industry such hazards will be there and one need not fear that. But I must accept that working conditions have improved when compared to my period”. I could not talk for some time. It took sometime time to understand what he said; but it took several years, still I could not digest what he said.

Kodidhu Kodidhu, varumai kodidhu
Adhaninum kodidhu Ilamaiyil Varumai
~Avvaiyar.