Jai Bharati, Vande Bharati

Gendered labour and its never-ending work

Bharati is 24. She lives in Delhi with husband, Ravi, who is 27, and their threeyear-old son Bhupen. Her other son lives with her in-laws in their village in Jhansi. Bharati is a labourer, and so is her husband. “But he earns more than me,” says Bharati. She explains that she is a beldar, who does the basic construction work, while her husband is a mistri. “I earn ₹300 every day, and he earns ₹500.”

This afternoon, Bharati is working on a central Delhi roadside. She is laying the cement on the ground. The sun is beating down heavily, and is a thousand times hotter than an average May day.

The temperature is hovering around 42°C. Bharati’s son is sitting beside her, busy playing a game of his own; the child has to tag along everyday with his parents to their worksite because there’s no one to babysit him.

Bharati isn’t sure when she will be able to enrol him in a school. It won’t be in Delhi, she remarks. “We live here for a couple of months at a time, and then we go back to our village to farm our khet (agricultural field), and later we return to do laboury (sic).”

In her life as a labourer, Bharati works as much as her husband, but her work continues at home too. The couple has taken a room nearby, where in the evening she has to mop the floor, wash clothes and cook dinner.

Every morning, she prepares lunch before leaving for work at 8:30 am. She always makes “four or five” rotis for her husband, four rotis for herself, and “one or two” rotis for her son. “I also cook some dal or subzi to go with the roti… Today, I made besan.” She clarifies that this dish is known among city folks as karhi.

Bharti and her husband return to their room at 6 in the evening. Recently, because of the extreme heat, her husband fell ill and couldn’t work for two days, which meant the family lost a thousand rupees.

“It’s so hot nowadays that I’m unable to sleep at night,” she says, informing that there is no fan at their place. “And there are mosquitoes.”

On being enquired about her name, Bharati nods energetically and says, “Yes, my mummy papa named me after our country, Bharat.”

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