Nightout with watermen of the city

Chennai: Be it times of paucity or plenty, for the men who ferry

Metrowater

, it is always ‘work from home’ – the vehicles they drive are their

places of stay

. For the young men from the hinterland who move to the city in search of greener pastures, affording a room is not an option. “All of us

sleep

on the

tanker

. During the rainy season, four or five of us sleep inside the cramped cabin,” said R Rajadurai, 24, a driver.

A water-filling station during the early morning hours is a scene of chaos with tanker lorries lining up for their daily routine and the buzz continues until night. It’s in the few hours until dawn the next day that the

drivers

and cleaners get to have a relaxed

meal

, catch up with some entertainment on their phones, chit-chat and sleep before they start the next day. For these tireless workers, a typical day starts at 6 am and goes on until at least 10pm and may well extend by an hour or two, said Rajadurai while having dinner amid the tightly parked tankers. There are at least 10 others from in and around Rajadurai’s village Pilrampattu in Villupuram district who work as either drivers or cleaners in Metrowater tankers at the filling station on RK Shanmugam Salai, KK Nagar.

“As many as 90% of us are from other districts,” said S Sudhakar, 28, also from Villupuram district. Almost every

truck

crew TOI spoke to at the filling station had a practical outlook towards the working conditions. “There are no jobs in villages. The advantage here is you get to work throughout the year,” said Rajadurai. Whenever they feel like visiting their hometowns, they have to put another driver in-charge and can go on leave.

Staying atop tankers is not an issue during summers, but when it rains, mosquito bites result in the crew contracting fever. “There have been instances of people going to their villages after an ailment and dying there,” Sudhakar said. The major grouse among the crew is the way they are treated by the public, who show their displeasure against the authorities on the drivers. “Abuses are common,” said A Aiyappan, 19, who works as a cleaner. There have been instances of people slapping us and claiming that they belong to a (political) party, he added.

Rajadurai plans to leave in a week to be with his pregnant wife. “I have requested another driver to fill in for me,” he said.