“We Survive by Working in Their Homes, If They Refuse to Pay Us, How Will Our Homes Run?”

Rita Singh

My Name is Rita Singh; I live in Narendrapur.  I take the train from Narendrapur to Baghajatin station every day, leaving home at 4:45 am in the morning and returning by 4:30 or 4:45 pm.

I work in seven homes as a cook and earn a total of Rs 13,000 ($170 approximately) every month.

Once the lockdown began, the local train also stopped running.  I am unable to go to work now. I will have to wait for the trains to start running again.

I am luckier than others. My employers are still paying me a salary during lockdown. It has been difficult for others, especially those who travel far for work. They are not being paid and are spending their savings; some have already spent what they had and are taking loans with interest to survive. Some, who live as tenants, are not able to eat. Their landladies/landlords are giving them rice, vegetables. Meanwhile, many are being told over the phone that they have been fired.

With the passing of each day, people are becoming silent. No one realized this lockdown would last so long; we thought perhaps it would be a matter of ten to fifteen days. That’s what people had in mind when they took loans. Now they cannot afford to take out any more loans.

We are collecting kindling and branches from trees, drying them, and using them as fuel. Very few are using cooking gas. The cooking is done during the day. We pour water over rice cooked in the afternoon and save it for later meals. We have it at night with some fries—maybe potatoes. This is how it has been. People go into the fields and pick up greens that grow in the open. Every evening we go out to forage. This way at least we get to have one vegetable with our meal. I buy one vegetable from the market. The rest I pick from whatever grows in the neighborhood.

The Public Distribution System [by which the government distributes food grains to the poor] has proved to be woefully inadequate for us in these times. Those who have digital cards are eligible for free rations. Others have to buy rice for Rs 13 a kilo. Only a few of us have these cards.

My husband is a house painter and has had no work since the lockdown began. He took care of half of our household expenses but now the whole burden is on me.

[As domestic workers], our bodies are always on the run; we work throughout the day. That heavy, physical work has suddenly stopped.  It is strange.  It makes us unable to digest food, the body feels heavy, bloated.