THEIR BODY OF WORK

The three “putai painters” are sunning themselves in a Gurugram park, enjoying the brief lunch break with rounds of chai and beedi.

The clothes of these men are stained with paint marks. To some extent their arms and feet too, including their faces.

The turbaned Sajid has his pants so copiously covered with these stains that he can be easily mistook as some Jackson Pollock-like painter busy at work in his studio. The other two men—muhammed Gilmesh and Abrar Ahmed—have their clothes splotched to a lesser degree.

Natives of Bijnor in UP, the labourers share a small room in Pataudi Chowk. “We wash our work clothes only once a week,” informs Mr Sajid. And even then there is no expectation of getting those daytime dresses rid of all the paint stains “but at least the dhulai (washing) removes the dust and the filth and the pasine ki boo (sweaty smell),” says Mr Gilmesh.

Inevitably, these work clothes don’t last long. The average life of a single set of pant-shirt is about a month, they report.

But what do the men do with their paintstained limbs and faces? Well, they wash every night after returning from work. Paints come in many varieties and some stains simply flake off their skin after a few hours, while others are more stubborn. “I first rub mitti ka tel (kerosene oil) on my body and then wash it away with water and then I apply the soap,” says Sajid. That doesn’t work for the other two. Their skin is allergic to that oil. “We use tarpeen ka tel (sic),” informs Mr Gilmesh.

Mr Ahmed’s situation is more complicated. His skin is allergic to almost every cleansing agent. He shows his blistered palms that he washed the night before with a detergent to remove some truly stubborn stains. “What can one do... you can’t sleep with stains on your body,” he says. The break is almost over. The men get up and leave the park.