Last week, I had a problem that gives most home owners nightmares. The sewage line connecting us to the mains was blocked and the backyard was floating in disgusting goop. “I can’t do this alone,” said the plumber, “we need a sewer cleaner!” A drain cleaner was duly summoned. Neatly dressed in a white t-shirt and snazzy red track pants, he looked like a college student but negotiated like a pro. “I’ll have to enter the main sewage pipe from here,” he said, pointing to a vast gaping hole in the ground, “checking your line’s going to take time... This is going to cost you!” The sum he asked for was so atrocious that I could only gape. “Who else is going to do such dirty work for you?” he demanded, refusing to budge. He was right. When I peeped into the drain into which he was about to vanish, I decided to pay him whatever he was asking for. An hour later, he emerged victorious, face blackened and hands dripping with stuff I didn’t care to identify.
“So, do you have an opening for a driver?” he asked as I was settling his bill. “Who needs the job?” I asked. “I do,” he said nonchalantly wiping his hands on his none-too-clean pants, “I only clean drains to earn the extra buck!” He had been a chauffeur for the last eight years, and had been cleaning drains on the side whenever he needed extra cash. “It’s a great part-time job — I get between Rs 800 and Rs 2,000 for each drain I clean. Drain cleaners don’t need any training like electricians or plumbers — one has to be ready to get dirty ... nothing that a good bath by the wayside tap can’t rectify!”
How did he start this side business, I asked. “Life has been unfair to me. Five years ago, I had an accident while driving my employer to work. Not only did he refuse to help me with my medical bills, he also fired me,” he said. Burdened with loans and out of a job, he began cleaning drains. “I realised that even one job a day earned me good money — better than what I made doing a cleaner job like driving. It’s just better to call myself a driver than a drain cleaner!” A class 12 dropout, he said, he also aspired to a better life, but cleaning drains just was too lucrative to let go of completely. He called drain cleaning his “insurance”: “Think about it — as a private driver I have no provident fund, no health benefits; only my salary to count upon. I’ve seen a time when I won’t have survived without loans; I don’t want to be that way again!” he said, adding, “One day, when I’m too old to work as a driver, this drain cleaning money is what I’ll have to bank on.”
Watching the drain cleaner/driver leave, I wondered at how easily people like him managed to slip through the social security net, having little to fall back on when they fell ill or became old and indigent. Clearly, the government needs to formulate better policies to protect the interests of the informal/unorganised sector — domestic helps, drivers, cooks and more, whose services improve the lives and lifestyles of people like us. Unlike the formal sector that by law receives provident fund, gratuity and healthcare, the people who make our lives more comfortable, have no such comfort in their lives.
The drain cleaner/driver’s shout interrupted my musings. “Let me know if anyone needs a driver! Just remember that I can come to work only after 10 a m — so I’ve time to get at least one drain job done before I start!”