Working on the shopfloor

Two weeks back, the supermarket sent a delivery boy along with me to carry the few excess and heavy packets I had in hand. Since it was a short distance, we walked home together. I got chatting since I was keen to know how they recruit staff for the shop floor - a neighbour from my village has been trying to come to the Gulf on any similar job since his area of expertise didnt offer many openings.

Prakass, as he spelt his name, was from Nepal. He had got the supermarket job through a recruitment drive the company carried in his city. After two years in a Dubai branch, he had been shifted to the new Sharjah branch. He earned 1400 dirhams (28000 Rs) a month and free shared accommodation in another part of the emirate. Food expenses were borne by the employees themselves. If I remember right, he worked two shifts in rotation for 10-12 hours a day (dont remember exactly).

I mention this now in the light of a journalist friend's article regarding Vismaya's death. Her father, he mentioned, "slogged" as supermarket supervisor in the Gulf for 25 yrs before calling it a day. Since the inverted commas suggested a disbelief about the slogging, I sent him a note. 

Indian supermarkets pay peanuts though it is an assured and steady income. He must've risen from shop assistant to a supervisor in his two-decade long service but couldnt have been earning more than 8-10k i.e. about 2 lac a month (being optmistic) by the time he left. And like most low and middle income expats, he had toiled - not in the sun, but in ac environs, on his toes all the time - and sent home money to renovate or build a house, fund kids education and in the end pay a hefty dowry for his daughter. 

For people in Kerala who assume it is okay for an ex-NRI to shell out some money for a fancy car for his son in law, it might be good to remember that it is not easy money. It is a lifetime's earnings - sacrificing a good life, away from family and in a country devoid of entertainment.

And if he and the children are active on social media, is that a crime? A good majority of us are too. Even my m-i-l in her 70s is active on social media, it is just a matter of being tech-savvy. Some have it, some don't.