By Huned Contractor

The documentary Kachra Kondi, produced by Pune's municipal workers' union, provides a shocking insight into the lives and work of sanitation workers

At first sight it’s nothing more than an open manhole filled almost to the brim with putrefied water. The camera stays still. Then, suddenly, a head emerges from within, followed by the torso. In his hand, the man, dressed in just his underwear, holds a huge stone. More debris is removed with each dive into the rancid mix of drain water that passes through links under the surface of the road.

The sight is enough to bring bile into the mouth of the viewer. But, for the man doing the job it’s routine work. So also for another sanitation worker -- an elderly woman -- who has to scrape faeces off open toilets and wash walls stained with urine and spittle every day.

Both workers are members of the unique dalit brigade of employees of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) whose task it is to keep the city clean -- whatever it takes. And, as Atul Pethe’s 55-minute documentary Kachra Kondi (Garbage Dump) in Marathi reveals, sometimes it even takes lives.

Produced by the PMC Workers Union, under the guidance of its secretary Mukta Manohar, the film shocks the senses. Not because Pethe has intentionally captured horrifying shots of workers handling carcasses of dead animals, even human corpses, and working in garbage dumps without any protection, but because almost all of us have so far been blind to the system that hauls garbage off the roads and in front of our homes to places that do not threaten us with contamination.

How can these people function like this? The question haunts us and stays with us even as we hear the laments and cries of these workers who let us step into their lives that are full of inhumanity, poverty, filth, illiteracy and the absence of any social status.

For the first time, the workers find a platform to express themselves. “I have been trying to buy a house for many years. When I went to a bank for a loan, they saw my salary slip and asked me about my job. They then told me to come back after two days. I never got the loan,” says a worker. “Men are so shameless that they don’t wait outside even when they see me washing the urinal,” says a woman worker.

Kachra Kondi tackles the issue from various angles. The putrid conditions in which the workers do their job is one aspect. Then there’s the equipment, or lack of it: none of the workers wear masks, gloves or boots while collecting garbage or entering manholes. Says Nitin Kareer, former PMC commissioner, who is interviewed in the film: “There is a budget to buy the necessary equipment and distribute it to the workers.” But between the cup and the lip lies the slip, so the protective gear never reaches the workers. “Corruption? Don’t even talk about it. It’s everywhere,” a worker points out.

There’s also the aspect of what this kind of work does to the workers’ health. Pethe films men and women who suffer from skin ailments and also injuries requiring hospitalisation. But medical assistance is almost non-existent; the workers bear the pain simply because they cannot afford to consult private doctors or buy medicines. Accidents are commonplace too. On April 19, 2007, for example, Lata Mhaske, a sweeper, was killed by a speeding van as she was going about her job in the early hours of the morning. Two workers died a few years ago from extreme asphyxiation. In 2006, there were 65 deaths among sanitation workers. The data is updated regularly. Beyond that, nobody cares.

As if all this weren’t enough, there is now the burning issue of sanitation work being outsourced to private contractors who bring in people at rock-bottom rates and force them to put in more than 12-15 hours of grinding work every day. For the PMC staffers, who feel that their jobs are now threatened, there is no recourse but to take out morchas and address corner meetings in order to raise awareness among both the bureaucracy and the public.

 “I have made this film with the thought that they deserve their fair share of health, education and basic human rights. There is no attempt to provoke or be overtly emotional. It’s an objective approach showcasing reality as it exists,” says Pethe, whose earlier documentary film SEZ: Arajakachi Nandi? (SEZ: Prelude To Anarchy?) deals with land-grabs.

Mukta Manohar says: “The film is an appeal to Puneites to act more responsibly and at least segregate their wet and dry garbage, vermicompost their wet garbage, and say no to plastic. This will make the lives of the workers a little easier.”

Pethe plans to subtitle the film in English for audiences outside Maharashtra. “After all, it’s a common enough problem across the country,” he observes.

VCD copies of the film are available at Rs 100 each from Atul Pethe Productions. Tel: 25421355.
(Huned Contractor is a freelance journalist and filmmaker based in Pune. Read his other review ‘Flush and forget’ , on the documentary film Faecal Attraction that also focuses on the issue of waste disposal)

InfoChange News & Features, July 2007