The young man approached the construction site with some sense of depression and fatigue. Morning was as usual the same as any other day. I saw that some employees had arrived, and their facial appearance was exhausted as if they were always under pressure to work very hard. Iron echoes could be heard, and the workers and the young man were preparing for the work for the day. They dressed in casual shabby apparels with cement and dust smudge as the trademark of their profession.
And that young man looked around and saw that the rest of the workers were already washing and arranging their tools. Among them, he made himself invisible—equal to everybody else sweating in the sun for wages meager enough to hardly make ends meet. Moving to a vantage position he saw from a distance a white car approaching the area of the project slowly. It belonged to their foreman they said finally coming up with the required name after some much discussion.
Immediately the car came to a halt the young man saw the foreman alight from the car with on clean shirt and neatly ironed trousers as opposed to the workers who could be seen being dirty before even going to work. I thought the man standing beside me was a creature whose life was far simpler than most of what was before me. Young man pursed his lips and quietly sighed, his gaze fixed at the car parked in the perimeter of the project. When thinking for himself the young man said: “Isn’t it interesting to go to work in a car?” Many a times it looked like a luxury for a laborer like him. Dream that could be seen only from the distance.
The young man and his friends immediately got into a formation as the foreman was walking out of the car ready to salute him. It could be seen that they was clear that as forough and full of sweat as this job was, discipline was something that could not be ignored. The foreman had the power of command on the site and the roll call in the morning was something which they had to undergo every day.The foreman was standing in front of them, looking solemn, with a book of records of people’s attendance. He gingerly flipped the pages of the book as the workers waited for their turn to be called. On each page was a list of names that are registered as workers on this particular project. The foreman scanned the faces of everyone to confirm that all of them were in the meeting.
The foreman asked sharply, “Very well, I will begin calling the roll for those who are doing some work this morning.”
The sound of paper flipping was very loud and clear in the quiet room. Suddenly, the foreman started shouting the names of his employees. They, in turn, stood up to give the answer or shouted in unison, “Present, sir.”
The young man had his hands free and placed them down his sides with folded arms, awaiting his turn. When the first few names were called out, it took a while, and then his name was called, “Aryan.”
With no delay, Aryan answered, “Yes sir, I am present.”
The foreman just gestured a little and proceeded to conduct the roll call with a sort of indifference. However, as each of the other twelve jurors was selected, the foreman stopped for a moment, scratching through his list. He looked suspiciously because one of the people he was expecting was not present.
Fortunately the foreman rises up to the occasion, “I notice there is someone missing today to my surprise, do any of you know why?” he posed this question authoritatively.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Aryan could only nod his head in the negative as he had no idea what had become of his fellow journalist. He was not friends with the others seeing them mostly during working hours and returning home without further communication except for work related things. The man, one of the laborers towards the end of the queue, replied, “He’s sick, sir.”
The foreman burst out a laugh and then glared at the workers. “But,” he warned them, “there are consequences you must face if you don’t turn up at work and these are loss of wages.” He didn’t raise his voice but was audible enough to grasp that he was serious.Aryan sighed quietly; he was only feeling small in that response. He sighed and said to himself, “Being a laborer is not a cup of tea”, here he was regretting how his life changed this way. There was no space for getting sick or even taking a break because they had no other incentivize than being paid based on presence. Often times if they failed to appear then the cash was not going to appear either.
Once he had completed the attendance, the foreman shut his book and put his pen back in the shirt pocket. He then proceeded slowly forward until he was at the head of the rank prepared to give orders for the day. Looking round the workers, the foreman eyeballed them gravely, making sure that all of them were paying attention.
Looking up at the foreman the worker replied, rather sternly, “Well, we have plenty of work today.” ‘There are several points in the project which should be completed soon, particularly the area of the main support pillar.One must move fast but be sure. No mistakes allowed’.
He turned his look towards few workers who are generally involved in concrete structure activities. ‘You, stand up, your job today is to ensure all the support pillars are well fixed with no measuring mistakes at all, ensure that the level of each pillar corresponds with the actual plan and make sure that there is no mistake here and there’.
Then the foreman looked at Aryan and a few other workers who used to be involved in lifting and moving of some very massive material. “Aryan, you and your team will be working in the logistics section You have to transport all the stack of beams and steel to the marked spot It will be best done before mid-day because the crane will be used to lift them up.”Aryan nodded his head in agreement although he was not too happy about listening to her. The task was not an easy one; the beams and steel they had to lift where very massive and needed good coordination among them. However, this was not the first time that Aryan had done such a task and, thus, he responded to the request without any hesitation. By the time he was a laborer, he knew that his job was going to involve hard work for which he needed strength and stamina.
“You better not be late again,” the foreman said and looked straight into the eyes of Aryan. This is why that pile of materials requires our attention and cannot be delivered late as it will create a problem for getting to the other point of the next procedures to be followed.
Aryan nodded slowly, comprehending the directions that were given to him. Given this situation, he had no other option than to perform his job well. This would result in more difficulties and in construction, even the slightest of complications could have disastrous effects.
When he had given certain instructions to each group, the foreman moved aside and yelled out, ‘Let’s get to work!’
Being an Aryan, he immediately joined his counterparts. They mobilized towards the stack of items that needed to be relocated. The stack included concrete beams and steel rods, objects which are not only massive, but also rather challenging to transport with the use of improper tools. But they also understood that this kind of job had to be carried out and they had no reason to complain.
Aryan and his team started to work efficiently. They reasoned that the construction process was simple, and all they had to do was to lift one beam and place it on another junction pointed by the foreman earlier. Aryan slowly started feeling the heat and beads of perspiration formed on his forehead though it was still early in the morning. Continuing to work under the sun which was even hotter than before, none of them spoke again. People were fully concentrated on their particular performances.When moving the beams, Aryan thought of the life that he exchanged for the life he is living now. He asked himself how he came to be in such situation, how did he find himself, working as a laborer with no future ahead. He believed that his life would be much improved. He once had big dreams, even to the extent of aspiring to be a cultivator. But now such a dream appeared to be a joke, and the reality offered before him was severe.
But even then, Aryan could not stop. Despite the hardships that the job presented him, it remained as his only means of getting paid. He could only suffer, lift load after load and still dream, dream that perhaps someday his life might change, a dream that he was starting to lose with every passing day.