Familiar because they are around us and Strangers because we do not recognise their presence.

We see (but do not notice) workers all around us. This photograph shows workers waiting near Khar Station. The lucky workers are offered work for the day by building and construction contractors.

Women waiting for contractor to take them to work site and provide work. These ‘familiar strangers’ meet us as drivers, handcart pullers, contract workers in factories, casual workers with uncertain income like porters at railway station …

….and as waiters, and restaurant workers. For us they are persona non grata. They are at best ‘familiar strangers’.

‘Familiar strangers’ face hazards at work. But they can’t do much about it.

‘Familiar strangers’ belong to a class called ‘Precariat’

Their lives and livelihoods are marked by chronic insecurity, unpredictability, and a lack of psychological well-being.

They are of India’s total workforce. Approximately 550 million individuals.

They remain hidden from the eyes of the common man. Getting a job is a big thing now, even if it is as a contract worker.

These women worked as contract workers for 35 years in a Public Sector Company. They were always paid minimum wages. Which means their real wages never increased in 35 years of work!

We see them at work, and move on … The plight of the building and construction workers is bad; there are many untold stories there….

With the fast-rising education levels among women, they are competing with men…….

…….Even for factory level skilled jobs like welding. But managing home is not a shared responsibility.

Yet it does not prevent a handcart puller from listening to music while taking his empty handcart …..

……. nor a driver from playing clarinet…

They may be uneducated, yet life’s experiential university schools them to form their philosophy of life.

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.

“तुम्ही जो वारसा मागे ठेवून जाता, तो म्हणजे दगडी स्मारकांवर कोरलेले शब्द नव्हे; तर तो वारसा म्हणजे इतरांनी आयुष्य विणताना विणले गेलेले तुमचे धागे होत.” सर्व मजकूर कॉपीराइट-संरक्षित आहे.