Meet the people who dig wells for a living

Thangavel, who owns this well-deepening contract. Before him, his father was a manual well-digger and his mother, Sirangaayi, had helped shift the loads of mud by carrying them out on her head.  The machine is somewhat primitive, but efficient. A well that would have taken his father six months to dig takes him only around two months. The machine cost him a lakh and is made to his specifications. It’s his only asset; he owns no land, no house. He’s still repaying the loan he took for the machine. It has a greased turntable that swings the crane this way and that, and yanks up the rope and lets it down into the well; there is an engine that powers the crane that spits clouds of black smoke. But it has made their lives a bit easier, and so they take it wherever they go, taken apart, transported on a tractor, and then reassembled.

“We get Rs.25 for every sq.ft., and from that everybody needs to be paid. Sometimes, we make money. Sometimes, we don’t,” says Thangavel. The first 10 ft is dug with the machine; then it is crowbars and muscle. Later, it’s lined with concrete rings or blocks by masons. The well can supply two to three hours of water a day. Asked about the job hazards, he lists digging, heavy objects falling on their heads and walls collapsing. Yet, there are children on the work site. Young boys swing on banyan roots and peer into the unfinished well. They finally go home on a moped chased by a dog. “It’s their dog,” Thangavel says, hopping into the iron bucket and going down the well. On reaching the bottom, he picks up a crowbar and breaks open a stone and uses a spade to shift it. There is a brown puddle of water. And a bottle of drinking water.

thanks to  http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/the-well-diggers-of-sivagangai/article6532913.ece