View from the pit

MCD worker,Delhi

Routine: Bhan leaves his home in Faridabad at 5.30 a.m. and reaches his office in West Delhi at 9 a.m. In office,he changes into another pair of clothes and sets out to clean clogged drains and gutters. In the monsoons,he cleans about 12 drains a day

For most people,monsoon showers are a welcome respite from the sultry heat,but for Chander Bhan,its the beginning of yet another challenge. Bhans job is to clean drains and smudgy gutters that get clogged in the rains more than they do in any other season.

Filth and septic gutters are a part of my life now. They are the source of my income. It is a real test of your mental strength more than anything else,as you have to deal with filth every day, says Bhan.

Bhan,36,a resident of Kuslipur village in Palwal,Haryana,starts his day at 5 in the morning,catching a train at 5.30 a.m. to report to the MCD office in Naraina,West Delhi,at 9 a.m. Before he came to Delhi in 2000,he worked as a farm labourer in his village.

I came to Delhi looking for work 11 years ago. I thought life in the city would be better than it was in the village. I thought I would earn more, build a house for my family and lead a good life. But here,the green fields of my village have been replaced with dingy,murky gutters, he says.

Once he is in office,Bhan changes into another set of clothes that he gets from home every day and sets off for work. The office gets complaints from different areas wherever there is blockage or where there is an overflowing septic gutter. I am then assigned specific areas and drains, he says.

He gets ready to clean a manholewithout a mask,gloves or even shoes. The office does not provide us with any of these facilities. We clean the drains manually with our hands. Initially,I used to feel very bad,I used to throw up,now I am used to it. I clean around six to seven gutters a day with my hands and earn Rs 12,000 a month. In the monsoons,I clean about 12 drains a day, he says.

Monsoon is the worst season for us workers. The water on the road brings all the mud and muck along with the flow,it all gets accumulated and starts stinking. At times,I struggle to keep vegetable waste and polybags from seeping into the gutter, he says.

During the rains,Bhan has to climb down the manhole to ease the blockage and pull out the decay. The worst is when I go inside the manhole. There is no oxygen inside and the hole is filled with poisonous gases. Initially I used to fall sick every time I went inside, he says. There are a lot of mosquitoes inside too. They bite me all over,but work is work. At times,the drain is overflowing with water. It also enters my mouth. I rinse my mouth immediately then, he says.

After a long day at work,Bhan goes back to the office around 5 p.m.,changes into his pair of clean clothes and catches the 5.30 p.m. train back home to his wife and five children. All his children are in school and Bhan is keen they study and get good jobs.

After reaching home,the first thing I do is take a good bath,have dinner with my family and talk to them for a while. After a day of working in slime and sludge,getting home and getting a good sleep feels good. But I know the next morning when I wake up,I will open my eyes to filth again, says Bhan.