I Followed Daily Wage Labourers in Srinagar & Here’s Their Story

A story in the time of the Jammu-Srinagar highway blockade.

On a warm Sunday morning, carrying the weight of tools and thirty years of experience, Abdul Majid Bhat starts his journey to Srinagar with three of his co-workers.

Affected by the closure of the Jammu-Srinagar highway, Majid and his team walk a good length on foot to reach the city.

Hailing from a small village in Wanapora, Majid, Hameed, Adil and Zahoor earn their living by digging borewells.

Majid started acquiring the skill of digging deep into the earth when he was 15. He then passed it on to three of his acquaintances, who now join him as co-workers on every working day.

The team of four men have a long, busy and tiring day ahead. Digging a borewell, forty feet deep, is their task for the day.

For Majid and Hameed, it is a one-hand job.

Hameed recalls digging the deepest ever channel in his twenty years of experience.

“The groundwater table was 110 feet deep at Humhama, and it took us a week,” he tells me.

Zahoor and Adil are beginners, but they are the fuel for the team. Young, energetic boys in their late teens with strong biceps.

With beams of the spring sun hitting their skin, the four men tighten the grip of the twist rod, providing the drill pipe rotational force that cracks the dry surface of the earth, and gradually makes a small borehole.

Their sole motivation being the slogan of faith, ‘haej draai baitullah, aes ti gasav insha allah’ (Pilgrims are on way to Mecca, and we will join them too, God willing.)

With each of their fists clenched around the twister, their movements syncing, hours passing, they reach the groundwater level and fit in the forty-feet pipe into the ground.

Later, they fix in a suction pipe and an electric motor that enhances the process of drawing water from the borewell.

(The author is a BA Journalism student and a documentary photographer based in Srinagar. All 'My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint. Though The Quint inquires into the claims/allegations from all parties before publishing, the report and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)