Interview with Meena and Sheela
From the book An Open Market for Informal Workers: The Precarious Labour Chowks of Delhi
When we reached the Sarai Kale Khan labour chowk at 9:30 PM, most of the people were awake. There were about a hundred people in the street, looking for a comfortable corner in which to sleep. Families and neighbours usually stay together, while the spaces under the flyover are claimed by the usual residents of the street: rickshaw pullers, beggars, the disabled and the destitute, etc. The divider that separates the road to Nizamuddin station and the footpath along the turn is where migrants mostly wait for work and sleep. There are also two shelter homes on this road. Migrant workers, however, rarely use this facility.
Meena and Sheela arrived at the labour chowk recently from a village in Jhansi district, Uttar Pradesh, where they were agricultural labourers. They belong to the Scheduled Caste community. They reached Delhi with their husbands and children, hoping to find work and a better future. Meena is in her early forties; Sheela is in her late thirties. Both women have been through difficult journeys and experiences.
Meena shared, “I haven’t taken a bath for two days now. We have to pay Rs. 10 to use the public bathroom, and the children often get very frustrated with the heat and the noise, so I would rather get a packet of biscuits for my children with that money, that would calm them down for 3-4 hours.”
Though they try to find work daily, there are many days when the family is left hungry or has only very little to eat. Meena and Sheela explained how, because of their gender, they cannot sleep safely or comfortably in the public spaces. “We keep the younger children close and awake through the night, so we are always tired,” said Sheela. “The nights are scary for us women. We do not feel safe anywhere.” They described incidents of harassment and violence near the labour chowk, but said that because they are migrants, they have no legal aid or support.
The women also mentioned the difficulties in accessing healthcare and sanitation facilities. Unlike men, women have to cope with menstruation without privacy or hygiene, which makes staying outdoors for long unbearable. They said that while shelter homes exist, they are often overcrowded, have curfews, and sometimes restrict family access, making them unsuitable for migrant families.
The challenges presented by homelessness and gender intersect deeply with their precarious livelihoods. When work is scarce, hunger, sickness, and exhaustion take a toll, but Meena and Sheela continue to hope for better days in the city.
10 Interview taken in July 2018
Jenny Sulfath 