On weekdays, Ashiruddin Shaikh blends into the slow-moving traffic of South Mumbai’s busy Mohammed Ali Road, his loaded handcart jostling for space amidst honking cabs and impatient bikers. The two-wheeled cart is long, wooden, worn out and piled high with several hundred kilos of material – a familiar sight around any wholesale market in the city.
Shaikh lugs his handcart for 30 kms every day, delivering around 900 kilos of rope, fishing nets and construction nets to retail shops between Dongri and Fort with just one assistant to help him. As they push and pull under the sun, one step at a time, you’d think the sweat couldn’t get any more copious. But every year, the month of May comes along and achieves that unwelcome condition.
In the humid Mumbai summer, Shaikh’s drenched shirt feels stickier, the cart feels heavier and by afternoon, the gamchha (scarf) wrapped around his head begins to feel completely ineffective.
“This is how it is in the heat – what can I say,” said Shaikh. “If you can’t tolerate such heat, there is no point coming to pardes, is there?”
Starting out
Pardes, or the foreign land, is Shaikh’s term for Mumbai – the city he arrived in 15 years ago to make a living. He hails from a village called Muslimpur in Bihar, where his parents, wife and three of his children struggle to make a living as farmers. He has two more children – adolescent boys – who moved to Mumbai a few years ago to study in a madrasa.
“I’ve been working in the goods transport field ever since my first day in Mumbai,” said Shaikh, now 42 but still lean and athletic. By “transport”, he means delivering goods on foot.
He started out as freelance coolie for shop-owners, walking around the backlanes off Mohammed Ali Road with a huge “paati”, or wooden board, on his head. The busy district houses a range of retail and wholesale shops selling everything from furniture to carpets and metal ware, and there’s always someone in need of labourers to make deliveries.
“In those days, I earned around Rs 20 for ferrying 50 kilos for 5 kms,” said Shaikh, who had to work with his “paati” for five years before he saved enough to buy a handcart. It cost him Rs 10,000, plus a fee to get it registered and acquire a license as a handcart puller. It is one of the only things he owns in Mumbai, besides two pairs of clothes, slippers and a few odds and ends.
“At first I used the cart for anyone who gave me work, then I got a job with an umbrella wholesaler, and now, for the past two years, I work for a seth who deals in nets and ropes,” said Shaikh.
‘I avoid cold drinks in summer’
Shaikh has time for a relaxed interview only because it’s Sunday, the one day when homeless handcart pullers can cool off the relative peace of a shuttered market zone. On other days, he is always rushing – bathing at the nearest public toilet, prayers at the mosque, breakfast at a local eatery and reporting to work by 9 am.
Each morning, his employer gives him a list of deliveries to be done – 100 kilos to 300 kilos of net and rope to each retailer, and at least 10 retailers to be covered by the end of the day. Shaikh and his assistant – a younger man named Shafiq Shaikh – then head to the godowns to load the handcart.
“The maal is manufactured in Gujarat and comes either by train or truck,” said Shaikh, who loads one ton at a time and spends most of the day delivering the lot. Even though all the retail shops are within a fixed radius, the back and forth adds up to almost 30 kms of walking and heavy pulling every day. It’s usually 7 pm or 8 pm by the time he’s done.
“In summers, everything takes longer, because we need to take more breaks and keep stopping to drink water or tea,” said Shaikh, who doesn't even possess his own water bottle. “Where would I keep a bottle? I just rely on roadside chai stalls.”
Healthy handcart pullers scrupulously avoid the temptation of cold drinks or chilled water in summer. “It can make you fall sick when you’re out in the sun all day, and I definitely cannot afford to fall sick,” said Shaikh.
‘They shoo us away from the shade’
Shaikh typically takes a one-hour lunch break at the nearest restaurant every afternoon, and would like to take longer ones during summer. That, unfortunately, is never an option. “Sometimes it’s so hot, you feel weak and just don’t feel like walking," he said. "But people often shoo us away if we try to sit – or even stand – in the shade of their shop signs. Also, retailers lose their tempers if we don’t deliver on time. Some of them treat us like machines.”
The traffic, the heat and the stress make Shaikh anxious and angry too, but he has learnt how to control it. “If we don’t tolerate the big people, it’s our own loss.”
By the time work ends, Shaikh is always drenched in sweat and eager to bathe before namaz. He must also wash his clothes and put them out to dry on a pavement railing, so that they can be worn every other day. “We have to wait up to 10 pm when the water comes to the local bathroom – and the worst summer days are when there is no water,” he said.
Shaikh earns an average of Rs 1,000 a day, which he splits equally with his assistant. Half of his income is spent on food every day and a part of the remaining is sent home to Bihar. Some months, when he can afford it, he moves into a 150-sq ft room in a nearby slum, rented with ten other labourers at Rs 700 a month each.
“Right now we have a room on rent, but bedbugs really multiply in summer, so half of us sleep outside,” said Shaikh, who ends up using the rented room as nothing but a place to keep his clothes. “I always have to be alert about my handcart, so I always sleep on it.”
This is the second piece in our series on what it means to work in extreme heat.
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Shaikh lugs his handcart for 30 kms every day, delivering around 900 kilos of rope, fishing nets and construction nets to retail shops between Dongri and Fort with just one assistant to help him. As they push and pull under the sun, one step at a time, you’d think the sweat couldn’t get any more copious. But every year, the month of May comes along and achieves that unwelcome condition.
In the humid Mumbai summer, Shaikh’s drenched shirt feels stickier, the cart feels heavier and by afternoon, the gamchha (scarf) wrapped around his head begins to feel completely ineffective.
“This is how it is in the heat – what can I say,” said Shaikh. “If you can’t tolerate such heat, there is no point coming to pardes, is there?”
Starting out
Pardes, or the foreign land, is Shaikh’s term for Mumbai – the city he arrived in 15 years ago to make a living. He hails from a village called Muslimpur in Bihar, where his parents, wife and three of his children struggle to make a living as farmers. He has two more children – adolescent boys – who moved to Mumbai a few years ago to study in a madrasa.
“I’ve been working in the goods transport field ever since my first day in Mumbai,” said Shaikh, now 42 but still lean and athletic. By “transport”, he means delivering goods on foot.
He started out as freelance coolie for shop-owners, walking around the backlanes off Mohammed Ali Road with a huge “paati”, or wooden board, on his head. The busy district houses a range of retail and wholesale shops selling everything from furniture to carpets and metal ware, and there’s always someone in need of labourers to make deliveries.
“In those days, I earned around Rs 20 for ferrying 50 kilos for 5 kms,” said Shaikh, who had to work with his “paati” for five years before he saved enough to buy a handcart. It cost him Rs 10,000, plus a fee to get it registered and acquire a license as a handcart puller. It is one of the only things he owns in Mumbai, besides two pairs of clothes, slippers and a few odds and ends.
“At first I used the cart for anyone who gave me work, then I got a job with an umbrella wholesaler, and now, for the past two years, I work for a seth who deals in nets and ropes,” said Shaikh.
‘I avoid cold drinks in summer’
Shaikh has time for a relaxed interview only because it’s Sunday, the one day when homeless handcart pullers can cool off the relative peace of a shuttered market zone. On other days, he is always rushing – bathing at the nearest public toilet, prayers at the mosque, breakfast at a local eatery and reporting to work by 9 am.
Sunday is the only day Shaikh gets some rest on peaceful streets.
Each morning, his employer gives him a list of deliveries to be done – 100 kilos to 300 kilos of net and rope to each retailer, and at least 10 retailers to be covered by the end of the day. Shaikh and his assistant – a younger man named Shafiq Shaikh – then head to the godowns to load the handcart.
“The maal is manufactured in Gujarat and comes either by train or truck,” said Shaikh, who loads one ton at a time and spends most of the day delivering the lot. Even though all the retail shops are within a fixed radius, the back and forth adds up to almost 30 kms of walking and heavy pulling every day. It’s usually 7 pm or 8 pm by the time he’s done.
“In summers, everything takes longer, because we need to take more breaks and keep stopping to drink water or tea,” said Shaikh, who doesn't even possess his own water bottle. “Where would I keep a bottle? I just rely on roadside chai stalls.”
Healthy handcart pullers scrupulously avoid the temptation of cold drinks or chilled water in summer. “It can make you fall sick when you’re out in the sun all day, and I definitely cannot afford to fall sick,” said Shaikh.
‘They shoo us away from the shade’
Shaikh typically takes a one-hour lunch break at the nearest restaurant every afternoon, and would like to take longer ones during summer. That, unfortunately, is never an option. “Sometimes it’s so hot, you feel weak and just don’t feel like walking," he said. "But people often shoo us away if we try to sit – or even stand – in the shade of their shop signs. Also, retailers lose their tempers if we don’t deliver on time. Some of them treat us like machines.”
The traffic, the heat and the stress make Shaikh anxious and angry too, but he has learnt how to control it. “If we don’t tolerate the big people, it’s our own loss.”
By the time work ends, Shaikh is always drenched in sweat and eager to bathe before namaz. He must also wash his clothes and put them out to dry on a pavement railing, so that they can be worn every other day. “We have to wait up to 10 pm when the water comes to the local bathroom – and the worst summer days are when there is no water,” he said.
Shaikh earns an average of Rs 1,000 a day, which he splits equally with his assistant. Half of his income is spent on food every day and a part of the remaining is sent home to Bihar. Some months, when he can afford it, he moves into a 150-sq ft room in a nearby slum, rented with ten other labourers at Rs 700 a month each.
“Right now we have a room on rent, but bedbugs really multiply in summer, so half of us sleep outside,” said Shaikh, who ends up using the rented room as nothing but a place to keep his clothes. “I always have to be alert about my handcart, so I always sleep on it.”
This is the second piece in our series on what it means to work in extreme heat.