By Raghuram Sharma
The rustic beauty of Tornagallu is still vivid in my memory. The roads, fields, avenue trees the hills and hillocks painted red by nature. An iron ore mines area. Small little hamlets thrown into the tumultuous uproar of the tipper trucks. Young drivers in their early thirties literally flying these tippers unmindful of the consequences of safety or the cascading effects on their health.
Now, I am in the port town of Mundra. And what a contrast. Well laid out roads in and around the port area. Hills and hillocks are replaced by the omnipresent massive containers carried by truck trailers. Well-lit surroundings. Automated loading and unloading process.
The same age group young drivers, driving their giant vehicles merrily to make trips up and down the port. Mostly migrants from the distant states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Security of the person and the cargo is well taken care of but talking about the safety of the driver, it is a debatable point.
Amid all these contrasting scenarios the one thing that is common is the driver. Stark similarity despite the contrasting backdrop. Yes, he is a typical Indian truck driver. My appetite for the real story is huge and it makes me interact with these souls of a different breed.
It was like any other day in the precincts of one of the many Container Freight Service yards in Mundra. Usually cheerful and composed Ansari was sitting lost in his thoughts. His tea cup was crying for attention. I put my hand on his shoulder and greeted him. He was startled. Almost dropping the cup from his hand, he composed himself and greeted me back. But I could trace the creases of his worry line crisscrossing his forehead.
“Ansari mia, kya pareshani hai hamein bhi to batao”, I enquired concerningly.
“Sir, kuch khas nahi, chorey ko lekar chinta hai”, said Ansari with a deep sigh.
Ansari is one of the most efficient and contended men I have come across at this CFS. A man of few words, he keeps mostly to himself except for a close associate from his own village. Like any other driver in this country he was also inducted into this profession by one of his village mates.
His abba jan (father) was an agricultural labourer from the village Ashapaneri, some 16 kilometres from Buxer in the state of Bihar. He has six siblings – four sisters and two brothers. I fail to guess if a big size family leads to poverty or the other way around! And to make the matters worse, Ansari got married early. It meant additional mouths to be fed. Agricultural labourer work was only seasonal and that too uncertain. Anyway our 10th failed hero was not that keen to get into the fields being educated! A friend quite elder to him took up the job of a driver in a company and it was through him that Ansari entered the same company as an assistant. Thus, began the life of Ansari with the truck.
A well-known modus operandi of initiation into this profession of driving for hundreds of youth in our country. A majboori and never a first choice for scores of uneducated or semi educated unemployed generation to make both ends meet. At least some source of regular income to take care of his extra burden. In a span of two years or so he learnt the art of driving deftly on the highways. In spite of acquiring the skills it was not so easy to get his driving licence. Grease the palms, irrespective of your constraints, if you intend to get your work done without hassles. Run of a mill story. Nothing new and nothing to get shocked or even get surprised of.
Md. Anwar Ansari is now a full-fledged long-haul driver with a valid heavy vehicle licence. It translated into better earnings. More you work, more you earn with your acquired new skill. But at what cost? Away from his wife and children leading a life of a vagabond.
The highway driver with an outer shell to shelter his inner feelings from getting exposed finds it hard to control his tears and opens up to me. “Sir, nothing can compare the presence of father in a family as far as bringing up the growing children is concerned”, says the emotional father. “My wife is overworked taking care of their day-to-day needs and asks me to get back home for the sake of the brats’ educational routine. I too miss them a lot. Yes, I am earning for them only but is money alone the answer for all the problems?”
“We are earning money but at the cost of finer aspects of life”, tells me our philosopher driver. “I am not earning so much to afford to bring my family over here to be together.”
What do they do to overcome this problem? Simple, get vanished from the work scenario for a good 2-3 months to be with the family. The satisfaction of being together is much more than the loss of revenue for those few months.
But what about the job?
Given the shortage of skilled drivers that too those with heavy vehicle endorsement getting a job is no more a problem. There are umpteen companies over here ready to grab them.
Hopefully, the stake holders’ dwell upon the issues faced by these drivers. We have to address them and find a way out to lure these skilled labourers(?), to expect continuity and loyalty. How many drivers of the Indian highways are on the direct pay-rolls of the transporters/companies? So much to say about their status in the vast transport department of which they are the so-called drivers of the country’s economy!
The Government and the stakeholders should come forward in providing them the basic facilities at least to mitigate their feeling of disgust for the profession. Regulations are confined to the rule books. We need its enforcement. It is time the law making and enforcing regulatory authorities themselves do not get intimidated by the lobbies of the sector.