#113, the sweeper

By Faces of Rajkot, October 1, 2015

I belong to a lower caste, now it’s not me who decided it is lower caste but I am told since childhood. I see some people are dying to get into lower caste list, I have no grudges against that but can you do the work what we have to do? Can you listen to the bad words we are used to?

My name is lalji, I am a sweeper in a hospital. I have to clean lot of dirty stuffs after the operations. Blood, body parts, etc. Sometimes I cannot eat properly or sleep thinking of what I worked for the day. I have to close my eyes for doing some of the work.

I know, it’s my fault that I didn’t study but we were not given any opportunities, encouragement or infrastructure to study that is usually provided by private schools. I was intelligent and if I did study, I would have been in a good position.

I really do not like my work. On Sundays, I go to clean roads and this police station allocated to my mother by municipality, as I want to give rest to my mother for at least one day in a week. This way I feel good about myself.

I always wonder why people throw plastic water pouches, paan/gutkha sachets or spit on the roads when all the paan shops have a litter box kept to throw these stuff or to spit?