The informal garment industry engages home-based workers mainly women who work at adda. Unfinished garments are taken to women's houses for further embroidery and embellishments. Adda owner sends in a packet of material required for this task (sequins, beads, crystal stones etc) and women get down to the tedious task. To further understand the problems faced by these women I visited Hajipura. A former employer of adda, arranged the meeting at his house. Women do not get days off so they took out an hour and a half from their work and gathered in his house. My mother cooked her delicious karahi for the lunch; my father bought packets of methai to be distributed afterwards; I revised my semi-structured interview guidelines; everything was set to make today's meeting a friendly discussion.
There was a bell on the door and I was told all the young girls and women have arrived. I went to welcome them in and they were huddled together at the corner of the street with their faces covered. Few were holding up their babies as well. We all sat on a carpet and I took the verbal consent. All of them looked at me with wide-eyes, quietly listening to what I had to say, even their babies did not make a sound.
Middle aged women were very eager to talk. I asked questions pertaining to family members, school going kids at the start in order to put them at ease. Since I was gathering data from all of them, all the women got a chance to speak at the start. Young women were very shy and looked down at their hands while talking.
During the lunch I asked them whether they vote or not and one of them said they will not vote this time since there is no point in voting. In the middle of the session one of the women asked me if the government will listen to me and increase their wages and I did not know how to respond to that. While I was still wondering what to say another woman spoke up, ”Agar aap humaray maslay hal kerwa dein tou hum usko hi vote dein gay jisay app kehain gi!” I was taken aback by her statement.
I told them studies like these help us understand their problems better so that better policies can be made. I knew I was deflecting the question and they were not satisfied with my answer. And that’s when everything felt wrong. Making them leave their work and sit here in a stranger’s drawing room, opening up about their daily lives to a woman more or less their age, who was having problem with keeping her shawl on her head and scribbling their Punjabi/Urdu responses in English on her diary. It was wrong that somehow I was giving them a flicker of hope that things will change. And I felt helpless. I felt powerless in that moment.
Just a hint of the powerlessness which they feel every day, every hour. A middle-aged woman’s words left a deep impression on me,
“Mey tou aj adday ka kaam chorh dun ager mey chor sakti, baalon mey safaidi aa gai, ankhon mey jala agya, hathon sey sui na gayi meray.”