Kachra Kondi (titled "The Garbage Trap" in the below English-subtitled version)
a documentary on the lives of sanitary workers in Pune,
directed by Atul Pethe,
produced by the Pune Municipal Corporation Workers' Union
Before giving you the video, here are two poems I've extracted from the documentary
1
The fragrance of a thousand rotten
ravishing corpses rushes out
as the lid of the manhole is lifted
The shit-pot, emptied by Savali’s mother
And far away, waking naked, heir to my generation
Is this the “reservation” for us?
(Poet: Jayanti Makwana, drainage worker)
(translated in the documentary from Marathi - or maybe Gujarati?)
2
With no inkling of the beginning and end
The living dead, me, was given birth
And so I was born
Had organs just like humans
And so identified as a human being
But human just for the sake of recognizing
You mash my whole life in your filth
Your shit
Don’t humans have the body parts?
Hands, feet, nose, throat, eyes, trunk
If that is so, then where are my body parts?
Who locked them?
In which cell of freedom?
Scrub me
It will only yield filth
Just filth
Trash, vermin and a breath of stink
Look at my lungs
Look at my heart
Look at my eyes
X-ray me
For the negative and positive results
Search for the complete human body with all its organs
Then you will see
How you have sucked life out of me
How you look down on me
Just to keep you clean
You force this work on me
That put humanity to shame and ruined me
I step fearlessly in your shit
Bare-bodied
Insects bit me
Nostrils flared by the filth
Sucked through breath, stomach, blood
Took the rod, pulled the wire, broke open the choke
Your blocked gutter gurgled
Oh people!
I suffocate in this living hell
Living through this death throes
I die in life
Living through this death throes
I die in life
I die in life
(Poet: Dhurandhar Mithbaonkar, former drainage worker)
(translated in the documentary from Marathi, though I suspect a better translation might be possible)
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