fact(w)o(r)ry
i visited one of the factories today…a factory that has only 4 sewing lines and 300 workers. it’s small, clumsy yet efficient. the workers had stopped working three days back asking for a raise. now that’s what i call offence. apparently they had asked for ’sir’ or ‘madam’ and would not listen to anyone else. so i went. it was easy getting into the cabin sitting down and listening to the compliance guy. sure….he made sense. these were all people from the cutting and finishing section who had been with us for years and who had suddenly been converted to the religion of protest and violence by some ‘other’ NGOs. so i sat and listened and listened and…listened. none of the workers had come in to meet me. i figured that perhaps they wanted me on the floor. so i went and sat and sat and sat… suddenly i saw all 300 faces all around me, trying to talk to me all together. the noise killed me, the frustration hit me and i decided to ask questions. some said they had written innumerable letters addressed to me which had never reached me; some said the nurse was a bitch who didn’t give them more than one medicine a day; some said the GM Productions had told them that the only way was to protest and get their due raise; some even said that they were always penalized for being vocal. so i told them my story. i told them that every morning when i am on my to the office, i try and dodge my chef at home. i don’t want to face him as i know his obvious demands. more money for more dishes. frankly, i don’t mind my aloo bharta anymore. i still don’t want to dish out a few hundreds for a fancy lasagna that we all can live without. i don’t need the salsa dip; i don’t need the pita bread; i don’t need the rich filling anymore. at a time when there’s no vegetable selling at less than Tk 32.00/kg (except papaya), we all might as well say a special prayer and have only one dish per meal. so i told them that i understood what they were saying. they listened and listened. they understood and made me promise that i would go back and talk to them at least once a month. i promised that i would. after all, my office was only 5 minutes away from theirs. am surprised how i have so far managed to take a vacation and be gone for so long, so far away from home. home’s where those 300 and i would like to be.
