Amit and Sunil Kashyap are the natives of Pahopur, District Gazipur UP and Nirmal Dube is from village Semari, District Buxar, Bihar. All reside together in a rented house in Usmanpur, East Delhi. Since all are working in the same factory, I decided to converse extensively with Amit. He came to Delhi with his elder brother, 2 years back who still works as a salesman in Lajpatrai Market. Since his brother and his several friends and relatives are working in various factories in Angooribagh, Amit did not face any problem in getting a job there. He joined a workshop, where Amplifiers of DJ were produced. He was the first from Eastern UP who had joined that workshop. His other co-workers are from Aligarh, Sultanpur and Merrut.

He started his work from 'fitting of transitors'. After that he was told to arrange pairs, followed by final fitting of sets and wiring. Amit says after the final fitting, sets go to the Engineer for final voice test. From where the sets go for packaging. According to him till two-three years back all the components were imported from China but now the scenario has changed, except Card and Lense all things are locally manufactured. He says that for some time people tried to produce the lense but remained unsuccessful. Although he is certain that the components are produced locally but he has no idea of the location of such manufacturing units.

He started his work @1750/- rs. per month. Now after two years he is getting 2500. According to him most his co-workers get some thing around 1000 to 3000/- per month. Only the engineer gets 6000/- who's been working there for the last 10-11 years. The engineers working in workshops are not the engineering graduates, but they are called the same on the basis of their experience. Very few of them are from ITI and Polytechinc background, which in any case hardly matters.

Since number of my previous postings are on the work pattern so that here I would like to concentrate on the human relationships in the workshops. The owner of thsi workshop is a cut-Sardar He is very good with his employees and is almost like their father. Whenever any worker requires money, he gives him money. "Kabhi-kabhi koi ladka paise lekar chala bhi jata hai"(At times, workers take the money away, never to return)And in that case boss does not enqire much.

All the workers are kept on faith. Workers do not have any documents saying that they are working in a particular factory. He does not recall any major accident in the factory, and if any small accident does occur then the employer bears the medication cost. Generally workers get one month paid leave. They then go to their village every 8-9 months. Besides, if any one gets emergency call from his home, he gets leave and for that leave usually he gets his salary. "Iske alawa kabhi kisi worker ko 10-12 hazaar rupaye ki zaroorat hoti hai to malik de deta hai, jisko log apne tankwah men se katwate rahte hain." (Besides, the malik gives gift to the workers on the occasion of fesivals like DIWALI holi, which is generally in terms of money. In case any worker asks for CD or amplfier then malik gives one to him.)

Generally two kinds of labor work there. One, the regualr employees and another the contract workers. But for both kinds of work 'contacts' is must. For regular employee 8 hours shift is necessary while there is no such shift is required for the contractual workers. They have to finish a certain assingment daily or some other ways. The good thing is that the regular employees are not bound to obey the 9-5 working hours. They are free to come according to their choice, the only thing is that they have to work 8 hours daily and meet the normal production standard in terms of qantity and quality. And if anyone fails in doing so, 'USKO 10-15 DIN MEN EK BAR DAANT PAD JATI HAI, MALIK SAMJHA DETA HAI, NIKALTA-UKALTA NAHIN HAI' (he gets a scolding every 10-15 days. Boss tries to make them understand, but never asks them to leave the factory). Usually malik (boss) does not sit in the factroy regularly, he comes once or twice in a day for few hours and then go to his friend's shop in the Lajpatrai Market. Amit says that he does not have any document to prove himself a worker of that particular workshop. Neither he nor any of his co worker has the ESI facility. And that way there is no record of his work or employment. However local Police staff come every week or fornight to enqire about the workers, "KAUN AAYA AUR GAYA' (who has come and gone).

Mainly CD players and amplifiers are manufactured in his factory. There are three kinds of CD players: LCD, PFD AND DOUBLE IC are maunfactured in the name of different brands like Samsung, Sony, Philips, Boxer, Videotek, Esquire. While Ahuja, Caption, Calvin and SO are the brands of amplifiers, which his factory manufacture. The average daily production
of his factory is 20-30 piece of amplifiers and 70-80 piece of CD players. Since these all are dublicate products so that some time companies file cases agains his factory also. "AAHUJA COMPANY NE EK BAAR CASE KIYA THA MP MEN HUMARE UPAR LEKIN WOH HAAR GAYI" (once ahuja company filed a case against us in madhya Pradesh, but they lost!). However, till now no body has raised objection on the CD players.

According to Amit, very few workers in the factory are from his area, i.e., eastern UP. Most of the workers are from Aligarh, Bulandshahar, Merrut and this part of UP. Amit says, "if I bring people from my side to work in the factory, the locals (people from western UP) harass them in several ways." "The first thing is that our language and culture is quite different from them, and secondly, no body wants to loose their space", says he. But this is not always true. People, who are keen to learn the job or earn livelihood have to settle in an atmosphere, be it favorable or not. According to Amit MAZBOORI AADMI KO KAHIN PAR BHI RAHNA SIKHA DETA HAI (Need can make a person learn to stay in any given circumstance)

After joining his present job Amit brought two people from his village and his own younger brother to work in the same factory. Although he has knowledge of every problem, which one has to face as a beginner, even then he tries his best to accommodate his acquaintances in the factory. And according to him the 'kam ki kami' (shortage of work)is the only reason of doing this. Amit is a Brahmin and the people who brought him were not necessarily Brahmins only."Nahin isme humlog jati-pati ka khyal nahin karte hain. Jo bhi jarooratmand gaon mein kahta hai kaam dilwa dene ke liye, usko apne saath le aate hain", says amit. (No, we don't care about caste and sub caste here. Whoever is in need and asks us to find a job for them; we bring them with us).Last time when I went to his local shelter in Usmanpur, I found the atmosphere really amazing. It was like a commune.9-10 of them resides there in two rooms. And the most interesting thing is that they are of different age groups and castes. But culturally they are from the same Bhojpuri background.

Now, something about the treatment, which newcomers have to face. None of the freshers get money in the beginning. Almost all of them start working in factory as learners. Once they learn how to make a CD/VCD player or something else and show a complete specimen of that to the owner, only then the owner fixes the salary and the terms & conditions of work for them.

Now it varies from individual to individual that how quickly he learns the work. If someone has a prior interest in electronics then he can learn the work in 15 days also, otherwise people have to spend 2-3 months simply in recognizing the components and its diagram. And another problem is the no body wants to give chance to the new comers. No body wants to leave his desk for him. And in that way a newcomer hardly get maximum 2 hrs in a day to practice the things. "Lunch me ya fir yadi koi kahin gaya hai to uski jagah par baith gaya" (either during lunch time or when someone has gone out for sometime), quips Amit.