PORT OF CALL

Our correspondent dons the badge of a railway porter and learns it is not easy carrying the world on your shoulders
After having taken countless permissions, I got an opportunity to make the transition from a reporter to a porter and go lend the coolies at Pune railway station a hand. According to the laws of the porter labour union, no one is allowed to work unless he wears the red uniform and a badge. That was no big deal but the next three hours I spent on the station I have been visiting since childhood was about adjusting to my new identity. I was now simply — badge number 30.
The announcement, “1460 up Banglore- Mumbai Udyan express is arriving shortly on platform number 1” was a signal for me to run. I had to enter a bogie and get a passenger with maximum luggage. The logic was simple, I had been told — the heavier the luggage, the higher the tip.

As soon as the train stopped, my partner Sunil Kotwal and I managed to book the baggage of a family. With one bag on my head and two in my hands, I followed Sunil. This wasn’t the first time that I was carrying luggage, but this was certainly the first time I was getting paid to do so.
It was a long exhausting walk from the platform to the parking area. I never thought that balancing the bag on my head would be that difficult and, as expected, dropped the bag. The sahib said, “Kaam theek se nahin kar sakte? (Can’t you work properly?)” I replied, “Naya bharti hoon, sir (I am a new recruit)”—this is the answer Sunil told me to give disgruntled customers. Outside the station, the rickshaw wallahs gathered around me asking, “Kahan ki sawari hai?”
After keeping the luggage in the car, it was time to talk money. Sunil asked for Rs 100. The passengers knew the luggage was heavy and they had hired not one but two porters. But, as expected, the sahib said, “Itne se kaam ke liye 100 rupaiya? ( Rs 100 for just this work?)” And he put a Rs 50 note in our hands and went off. We were disappointed by the negligible returns that we got for the load that we had carried. This was my first introduction to the disconnect that exists between the income and the work that the porters do. We were already outside the station and now it was time to wait for the passengers coming to station to catch the train. It was 3.00 pm and the Goa-Nizamuddin Express was scheduled to depart at 3.30 from platform number 3. I had thought till date that any porter could approach any passenger. But we had to wait till the porters ahead of us in the queue had found their passengers.

Our catch was a small family of a young student, his mother and his grandmother. By now, I was thinking like a porter. So, more than the passengers, it was the three suitcases, two bags and one handbag that I focused on. Sunil gave me the opportunity to haggle. I said, “Itne kaam ka 100 rupaiya,” to which the elderly lady gave me the same answer as the earlier sahib, “Itne se kaam ka 100 rupaiya?”
I had seen Sunil and the other porters negotiating so following their lead I said, “Agar jamta hain to bolo, nahi to hum doosra customer dhoondhte hain (Pay if you can, or else I will look for another customer).”

Sunil and I turned back just as we heard the lady saying, “Rs 80”. We lifted the luggage. A small, well-deserved tea break later, my three hours as a railway porter were up. It is a tough life as a porter, and as I left the station, the only thing I hoped for was a better deal for Sunil when the next train comes in.