Kamal’s hair sticks out like white feathers. Barring his thin, wiry legs, he is covered in a sheet of white powder — maida flour. He has been carrying 50 kg sacks of the flour to the first floor of a building near Periya Uthandi Street in George Town for the past one hour. The white granules tumble off him every time he talks. “Maida is alright, but I don’t like sugar,” he says, running a powdery hand through his hair. “Each sack weighs 101 kilos. It’s difficult to balance it on my back.” Kamal has been a load man in George Town for 10 years now.
“Don’t waste time,” his colleague Ramesh cuts in. “Keep moving. It’s going to rain any minute.” Kamal smiles apologetically as Ramesh swings a sack on his back — Kamal grips it by its ear and jogs up a narrow flight of stairs; more maida drizzles on him. They might even survive without customers, but the textile, grocery, and vegetable shops of George Town cannot function without load men. These men are the feet for the goods that arrive in trucks. They carry sacks of rice, dal, vegetables, fruits, salt, sugar and more on their rock-solid shoulders throughout the day. “We make anything from Rs. 100 to Rs. 500 a day or even more,” says Ramesh. “It all depends on the work we get and how far we push ourselves.”
Shankar first came to George Town when he was 15 years old. “I initially assisted the adults,” he says. “My job was to sit by a vandi and see to it that the sacks were not stolen as the men went about their work,” he grins. “I did it to earn to spend on cinema and cigarettes…and now it’s become a way to feed my wife and kids.”
Load men arrive at specific points on Anna Pillai Street and Chinna Thambi Street by 4 a.m. every day. Dressed in lungis over knee-length striped shorts, they wait by the trucks that arrive with goods to catch the eye of a shop owner. “We mostly work till 10 a.m. After that, we hang around for the odd truck or two.” Has the physical labour affected their health? “No,” shrugs Kamal. “I’m fit. I’ll work till there’s blood in my veins.”
In nearby Godown Street, 70-year-old Murugesan is helping a man unload a package from a wooden hand-drawn cart. “I’ve been working here since the time of annas,” he says. The carts are taken for a rent of Rs. 40 per day. “We work in teams of five to seven,” explains Murugesan. George Town even provides for the livelihood of men much older to him, he says. “Dig further and you can find 80-year-old men lugging carts.”
Udhaya Kumar and friends lounge by their parked carts a little further on. He is the mesthiri or the leader of the team. Unlike load men, cart men work from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Their job is to deliver bundles from the transport office to the shops that employ them and vice-versa. There are two such offices in the area — one each on Walltax Road and Mannadi Road.
The carts snake through the narrow lanes of George Town — they rule the roads here. The men draw them with their hands extended behind as the load pulls at their shoulder muscles. “Once we reach the destination, we carry the bundles to the shop, which can be located on the second or third floor,” explains Udhaya Kumar. “The kai vandis of my team mostly carry book and textile bundles,” he adds. Cart-pullers are unionised and maintain a strict code of work. “If a mesthiri passes away, none of us will touch our vandis that day. We will park them by the road in mourning,” says Udhaya Kumar. Cart-puller Muthu works alone. He smoothly negotiates his blue-coloured cart through the traffic on Audiappa Naicken Street. The 64-year-old looks worn out that afternoon; dust cakes his body and sweat trickles down his brow. Why did he opt for this job? “I had no other choice,” he smiles sadly. “ Padippu illai — I’m not educated.”
Most load men finish their day with alcohol. “Our body aches from all the physical work; alcohol helps us sleep well,” says Udhaya Kumar.
As I prepare to leave, Kamal runs towards me from the other side of the road on Audiappa Naicken Street. His team has finished with the maida sacks and are here to find more work. “You’re still here?” he grins. We say our good-byes and part ways. It begins to rain just then, when I catch a glimpse of Kamal walking into a dark alley. A bottle pokes out from the pocket of his shorts.
