Puri Subzi

The Coal Scavenger

Journeying through Jharkhand

It’s 0600 AM and there is a fierce wind blowing across Dhanbad station. I am tired, my feet hurt and my nose is simultaneously being assaulted by the damp, fetid smell of a city that’s taking a collective morning dump and the pungency of chillies and eggs being broken into a pan smoking with mustard oil. I also get feeling that I am lost. This despite my fellow traveler being VSP.

Both of us are in Dhanbad after a whirlwind tour of Varanasi that was overwhelming. Too many sights and smells crammed into a six hour window followed by what I tell myself later, a foolishly indulgent piece of theatre. All to prove to myself that I could travel, in the harshest of winter, general class in one of the most crowded trains in the country - the Howrah bound Kalka Mail.

VSP’s back after purchasing tickets, which we will use to board the Dhanbad - Ranchi passenger. Confident as ever, he points in the direction of Platform 5 and says “Lets go, thats where our train will start from”. While we wait for our train to arrive, I pick up a copy of the Dainik Jagran - the only newspaper available. My Hindi is rustic at best and I struggle to read a story about an underground mine fire that’s eating up roads near Hazaribagh. VSP meanwhile seems more interested in eating the scrumptuous looking omelettes which are promptly ordered and devoured. There’s a bit of a scramble when the empty rake eventually arrives but we eventually find side window seats in an odd coach - there are no toilets at either end! Only later on do I realize that is a retrofit of an older suburban, local type coach.

There’s a gentle bump as the locomotive is attached. I venture out to note that it is a venerable electric from Mughalsarai depot. The paint is peeling off in chunks, taking bits of the shell with it! It clearly has seen better days and I head back wondering how long it might be in active service. Back in the coach, VSP’s busy pouring over his timetables and making notes for our journey later on in the day. The plan is to head back to Tatanagar from Ranchi using the passenger service via Muri and Chandil. There is a certain comfort to having a person like VSP around. Knowing that at your call is probably the best brain holding vast amounts of train data, but for an intrepid traveller like me who dislikes too much planning and too much structure to his journey, it can get overwhelming. But not today!

10 minutes later, with a gentle toot from the locomotive we get moving. 6 meters into the journey and I immediately realize the folly of choosing a window seat, in the direction of travel, on a cold, cold December morning. There’s an irritating 1 inch gap that the glass shutter will not cover and the thin blast of frigidity is relentless. But I look past this minor irritant as we negotiate our way through a maze of lines and catenary. Rolling through the crowded suburbs of the city, I notice how everything seems to be covered by a thin sheet of coal dust - the rails, the catenary poles, the sleepers, the houses, the drains. Even people seem a shade darker than usual.

Our first stop is Kusunda, a station with a raised earth platform, a ramshackle room that dispenses tickets and a few dogs scratching themselves awake. I don’t notice it immediately, but on the other side of the station and towards the south is an enormous yard, six to seven lines all occupied by rakes overflowing with coal. Through the dirty glass of the shutter, I strain to make out the details. Suddenly, I let out a low yelp. No, not a weird locomotive sighting, but a man is on top of one of the wagons and busily throwing down huge lumps of coal, which his helper down below is stuffing into a sack. He is 6 inches away from a wire carrying 25000 volts of electricity and yet there is a calmness and assuredness behind this pilferage that is amazing. I point this out to VSP and in his characteristic and sardonic Deccany twang says something that can’t be said here!

We trundle along through the fog and cold at a leisurely 45kmph. The tracks are in pitiable condition and the bounce and gait becomes disconcerting after a while. A line appears suddenly from a corner and disappears just as suddenly. This happens quite often and after 5 min, I give up trying to find out the origins of these spurs. Baseria halt comes and goes without much fuss as we pass by enormous dumper trucks carrying coal, waiting patiently at a couple of level crossings. Somehow, the black seems all pervasive. I had no clue how much more darker this was going to get.

A proper station at last comes into view. Sijua has a high level platform and a foot over bridge. And lots of people milling around on the platform waiting to board. Unusually, none seem the office going type. Everyone has a sack or two of coal in front of them and waits patiently, almost cat like, to leap into the train.

Thud, thud, thud! The entire coach shudders as a dozen coal sacks land heavily near the doors. There’s shouting, screaming and rabid gesticulating as more people, mysteriously appearing out of nowhere, get in on the act. More floor pounding, more coal sacks landing. The loco hoots once which results in the noise level reaching ear-splitting levels. Quick, sharp words are exchanged between people who’ve loaded the sacks and their ‘controllers’ on the ground. One more hoot. This time the chain’s pulled and there’s loud hiss of air escaping the valves. I am trying to make sense of what’s happening, but it seems surreal, as if Andre Masson himself decided to paint the scene unfolding before me. Big blur of people, voices and coal dust. But in this chaos, I notice something that makes me go, “No, it can’t be. Are you really sure?”

Every single person who loaded the sacks and remains with them in the coach is a woman.

We get going eventually after more hollering. The women clearly seem dissatisfied with their progress in the getting the sacks on board and in what seems to be a fight between two rival groups, fingers are pointed and words are exchanged. Doors, ahead and behind me are jammed with these sacks. The women climb over a couple of them and fan out through the coach identifying places to store them properly. Loud arguments break out between people occupying seats and the coal women trying to shove them underneath. In the adjacent bay, one guy almost chokes a well built and hefty woman but calm and better sense prevails after a few others intervene. The burly woman very non-chalantly shows her middle finger and gets on with the work at hand! Angarpathra halt comes and goes with very much the same action at Sijua. There are now coal sacks stacked right upto the roof of the coach. Every inch of available storage seems to be taken. Except space beneath my feet. I have resolutely put my foot down and not allowed any coal underneath me. I feel rather smug and proud. And with a guffaw, VSP seems to be agree.

That’s when I notice her.

Her eyes seem to be seeking something as she peeks from behind the partition of the first bay. A shimmer. And just like that the space beneath my feet is taken. I seem arrested by her presence and offer no resistance when she asks me to move. The sack comes thudding down from the strap on her head and after a few struggling seconds to contain a small tear, everything quietens.

“Thank you”, she says in a very weak voice,
“It’s OK”, I mutter back.

For the second time in less than half an hour, I am astonished. There is a small baby tied to her bosom using a rudimentary sling. However did she manage to lift the sack and her baby and get into the crowded train? What is her name? Why does she do this coal pilfering? Isn’t she afraid of getting caught? Why am I seeing only women carrying these sacks? Questions flash in my head. I want to ask them and get answers. Somehow her appearance has completely managed to turn this leg of the journey into something different. Something which I am unable to point and pick.

Meanwhile, VSP momentarily distracts me to inform that we have arrived at Katrasgarh Jn. It is a smallish junction flanked on both sides by the now very ubiquitous coal loading yards. And to no surprise, most of the lines are occupied with overloaded rakes. We start after a two-minute halt and continue to trundle through the vast, almost featureless, black terrain. A small rivulet called Tentulia flows swiftly as we cross the eponymous station.

As VSP buries himself in his timetables, I take up the courage ask the child-slinging woman, who seems to have regained her breath and composure, a few questions. My curiosity cannot be contained any longer.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”,
“No, saab, but I don’t know why you want to take to a person like me”

Her eyes are sharp and clear as she begins to answer. Her frail and thin frame hides a very confident voice that has a very sexy rasp. Rupa.

“So, Rupa, why do you carry these coal sacks? Where do you get them from? Where do you take them? And why is that I only see women doing this work?”

“Saab. What to do. We are poor and we have no other kind of work. The big mines around this place are either closed or don’t employ people like us, so we all pool together and dig these small holes that are not officially allowed. We then take the coal out from them and sell them at the market near Bokaro and Kotshila”.

I am about to ask her another set of questions, but she’s talking rapidly and is completely into her stride.

“Sometimes, the babus come and close our holes, so we have to steal from the trains and sell the coal, like today. Yesterday, three men came up to my village and thrashed a few of us and asked us not dig these holes. See this big bruise on my left hand”, she is pointing towards the red welt, “this was caused by one fellow trying to drag me, but luckily my neighbour saw it and chased them away with a stick”.

The baby shifts in her sling and seems to be waking up, but she nudges it and caresses it back to sleep. “His name is Arjun”. There is an extra twinkle in her eye as she goes on for a few minutes about how she’s the only person among these women to take care of her baby and work at the same time.

“But isn’t this kind of work dangerous?”,
“Saab, yes, it is. But I have to do what I have to do to give my baby a good life, no?”,
“Yes, but don’t you have a husband who can help you with this?”

There is a tinge of regret when I ask this and I can’t help notice that she doesn’t want to answer. And she doesn’t. Lots of minutes uncomfortable silence in which I try to distract myself by watching more of the black bleakness outside. Phulwaritanr comes and goes with a maze of lines overhead a little outside the station. We halt for a couple of minutes on either side of a bridge spanning the wide, very dirty and very pinkish green Jamunia river. At both halts there are tracks joining and splitting and as VSP goes gamely on with the details, I try to take in as many of them as possible. Dugda is a biggish halt with a sizeable crowd getting down and boarding. There is a flurry of activity in the coach as a few of the women unload and take on sacks. Rupa, meanwhile, is stone-faced and has buried her head in her hands and refuses to look up.

The line meanders its way through a series of deep rock cuttings and emerges into a clearing that is bordered by very thick jungle. This is probably the most dramatic turn of scenery I have witnessed in a long, long time. A few meters down, a pair of lines join us, which VSP happily informs are the main tracks from Gomoh to Chandrapura. The sight of this stirs the coach into a frenzy. The hollering beings, sacks are bought down from the luggage racks, shifted from below and crammed into a giant pile near the doors. I get the impression that the train will soon come under really heavy artillery fire and the bags are meant as some sort of protection!

We slowly pull into the station and are put on what looks like platform 1. There are about half a dozen lines separating us from a platform on the other side. And as usual, all these lines are occupied by faceless, nameless locomotives hauling coal rakes. VSP takes this opportunity to stretch his legs a bit, but I stay put, wanting to talk to Rupa more.

She senses that.

“What to say about my husband, saab? I married him because my mother needed the money and he paid 1500Rs on the spot. I don’t like him. Tell me which 20 year old girl will want to marry an already twice married person who has a big drinking and gambling problem? Will you give your sister to such a person? Will your mother agree even if you say yes?”. The vehemence and hurt in her voice clearly showing.

“He doesn’t work at all and he keeps beating me if I don’t give him money at the end of the day. I earn 35 rupees a day by carrying these two sacks for more than 100km. What money do I have left for me and my baby, huh?”

I am shocked at how it is an obscenely low amount, but before I say anything, she rattles on.

“For each sack we make 70 rupees, but we have to pay all these people. The railway police,” she hawks and spits as she mentions them, “the people who help us dig our holes, the station master and coolies and the ‘other people’”. I don’t have to guess who these ‘other people’ are.

“On some days, all my money is taken from me. I start that with nothing and end up with nothing. I dig up some fresh mud outside my house and eat that for dinner because I can’t buy anything else.”

“Wait, what? You eat mud for dinner? Please tell me you are only joking”,
“Do I look I am joking, saab?”

Wow. Space and time compress. Everything seems a blur. The loud wail of a passing engine only adds to the whirlpool of surreality in my head. Sharp and piercing. Blocky and bulky. Colors that I can’t even imagine start appearing and form a film in my eyes.

35 rupees a day? Eating mud for dinner?

I am shaken from my trance by VSP, who’s returned from his walk. He curses the unusually long halt we’ve had. I nod, pretending to know it, but in reality my concept of time seems to have been shot. Rupa’s gone too, helping another woman load a sack of what looks like vegetables. It’s covered in black dust, so I can’t tell at the moment. The cause of our interminable delay soon turns up - a grossly underpowered single engine hauled fully loaded rake. Within a few seconds, we are given the go ahead and with considerable effort, we are finally off. The thick vegetation continues as we loop around the giant thermal power plant and cross the Damodar river using a classic truss bridge.

Next stop is Bokaro. Home of the giant steel plant, many, many more industries and for us railway nerds, the most zany liveried WDM-2 locomotives. The station is clean and modern, befitting a town that seems to be very confident of its place in the world. As we pick up speed after a five minute halt, I notice that the streets are clean, well maintained and…sterile. Seems like the perfect township, but with the character of an operating room in a hospital.

The landscape’s changed dramatically again. After the black of Dhanbad and lushness around Chandrapura, this seems very deserty. Small rolling hills of decaying shrub, littered with broken and half constructed houses. Only the color seems to have changed. The bleakness remains. The villages of Radhagaon and Pundag come and go quickly and the crowd in the coach starts to thin. Rupa is suddenly nervous as we approach Damurughutgu Halt. Her weight shifts constantly and she keeps knotting her fingers. 

“What happened? Why are you so nervous?”

She looks around to make sure no one else is paying much attention.

“The hafta fellow usually comes here and takes the money. But today I have nothing, so I don’t what to do. I hope he doesn’t come”, sounding very hopeful.

Her wish doesn’t come true though, as a very thuggish looking and muscular chap boards and starts eyeing the remaining women with coal sacks. I can see small notes being passed around quietly and nervously. It’s Rupa’s turn. I want to intervene and do something, but I don’t and with an almost invisible bat of her eyelid, Rupa approves of this action. There’s a loud argument between her and the goon which results in her baby waking up and bawling. Threatening gestures fly from both sides as I desperately try to keep calm. One of the other women intervenes and in about half a minute everything seems to have been worked out. Rupa is in tears though. I ask her what’s been promised to the goon, but she refuses to divulge. Everyone just goes quiet. 

I am distraught and want to help, but I am afraid of extending any help. Despite her struggle, Rupa is a proud woman and wouldn’t take kindly to any sense of pity. But I overcome this and withdraw a 500 Rs note from my wallet and extend it to her. She balks.

“Saab, I don’t need this. Why are you giving me this much money”,
“Please take it. It would mean a lot to me if you took it and used it for something you and your baby need”,
“Saab..”

She hesitates. For a long time. But eventually takes it and puts in to her baby’s sling.

“Thank you, saab. I don’t know what to say”

Before I can say anything, there are loud noises from across the coach and about six women converge towards the door. I notice that we are slowing down. Rupa gets up and joins the rest of them as we pull up to halt at Kotshila. There’s near panic as about 25-30 sacks are rolled off on either side of the train. Rupa gets down too. 

“This is where I sell the coal in the market. It’s across the station there”, she says pointing towards the far end.

“Thank you again, saab. You are a complete stranger to me and I really don’t know why I talked to you. I am sorry if I told you something I shouldn’t have”,

“No, no, don’t be sorry”

And with that she’s off. Lifting her sack and her baby and walking towards a 35 rupee reward for her labour. 

We halt for quite a long time to allow the Hatia-bound Shatabdi Express to overtake us. VSP’s all excited and awaits the run through with a great, beaming smile. But my mind is elsewhere. The overtake done, we swiftly progress to Muri Jn, where a giant aluminium plant that belongs to the Birla group looms over the town and station. I venture out to buy something to eat, but return empty handed.

The scenery out towards the climb from Muri to Ranchi is spectacular, but I can’t get my head around to enjoy it. Rupa’s words, “Saab, what to do. We scavenge coal and eat mud. This is how our life is”, continues to haunt me.