Meet the Room-Room Boys of Guptkashi, Uttarakhand

Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam

If you drive upwards from Ukhimath to Guptkashi anytime after four in the evening and do so at the peak of the Kedarnath yatra, it would be hard to miss the sight and sound of young boys yelling ‘room-room’ at your vehicle. But thanks to them, you won’t have to spend hours looking for a hotel room to crash in.

As one of them carries your luggage, unlocks the room and settles you in, you may be forgiven for thinking he’s a local who’s dropped out of school and is now employed, probably at extremely low wages. But pause a little before you take take them and their lives for granted.

Sixteen-year-old Kushal runs away the first time we approach him. So do other boys. After much convincing, he opens up saying, “I study in the 10th grade and 15 to 16 years old. No no, I mean 16.”

Kushal and many other teenagers like him in this part of Uttarakhand wait for summer vacations with bated breath. Not because they serve as a getaway from the pressure of academics, but because of the mini-internships they bring along with them. Kushal usually earns between six to seven thousand rupees in two months and uses it to pay his school fees.

Seventeen-year-old Mohit Rawat is not that shy. He thinks of this summer job as a learning experience and conceded that going about a job isn’t an easy affair.

During childhood, we demand whatever we fancy from our parents, and they oblige. But when we work, we realise the costs of our demands and value the efforts of our parents. Working is not easy, it’s hard work.

Mohit Rawat

But not everyone’s as lucky. Deepak Singh Rawat works at a small hotel as a bellboy and helps customers with their luggage. He had to give up studies after finishing school and began working with a private company in Uttarakhand. But the company shut down, leaving him unemployed. Today, he’s a married man, who now relies on the hotel for his income.

There’s hardly any employment for us in Uttarakhand. We will keep on running from pillar to post if we don’t get government jobs. 

Deepak Singh Rawat

It’s exactly the lack of opportunities in rural Uttarakhand that forces teenagers like Himanshu to the urban centres of the state. The 19-year-old engineering student was lucky that his parents had the financial means to send him out for studies. He feels that large parts of the hilly state are under-developed, where finding a respectable job can be difficult.

There’s no permanent source of income here. No one’s interested in selling vegetables. People move to other states in search of jobs. Unlike big cities, there are no call centres here.

Himanshu

According to a report published by the Uttarakhand Rural Development and Migration Commission, 2018, around 8.9 lakh people in the hilly state are unemployed. The same report also states that 70 percent of those below the age of 25 have left the state for better opportunities.