Kayal Sahoo, a 20 year-old, beautiful village girl, lives contented in a brick kiln in Ranga Reddy district, Andhra Pradesh. Kayal’s husband, Ashok Sahoo, works as a loader at the kiln. Kayal is a homemaker, and has never worked as a labourer in the brick kiln. Since her marriage, however, this young woman from Kantabanji in Balangir district of Odisha has been destined to live at the brick kiln.

“I was barely 15 years old when my parents got me married to Ashok Sahoo, a 20-year-old youth. The very next week, we moved to Ranga Reddy district, where my husband had been working for two years,” informs Kayal.

Kayal was very scared about leaving her hometown and migrating to Andhra Pradesh. “Folks in the village had told me that I would have to learn Andhra bhasha (Telugu) and that no one would be there to understand Oriya and my broken Hindi. I was deeply upset and got high fever before travelling. My husband was not aware of my apprehensions and so forced me to go with him. Anyway, I would have followed him. What other option does a married woman have, other than burying her likes and dislikes in order to be equal to the expectations of her husband?” asks Kayal.

Once the couple reached Ranga Reddy district, contrary to her expectations, Kayal found herself among a group of families from different villages of Odisha. “They all spoke Oriya. Many were as young as I was, and many were with small children. There were old people too. Thus, a thousand kilometers away from home, all of us could adjust in the new locale,” Kayal recalls.

Ashok’s work begins at 5 a.m. in the morning and goes on till 5 p.m. “We have to load bricks and fly ash on to trucks. For one truckload the payment is Rs 800. There are four persons to load the truck and so each one get Rs 200,” says Ashok. “If it is fly ash, the rate of loading one truck is Rs 1,600, and we each get Rs 400 per truck. We load three to four trucks with bricks on a daily basis. For fly ash, we load only one,” he informs.

Ashok doesn’t like the idea of Kayal working. He believes that it is the man who has to earn, and the wife who has to take care of the family. “I would not like my beautiful wife to carry bricks and ash. Besides, our son, Biswanath, is too small and needs proper attention and care,” Ashok says.

“We were originally staying in a small house that we had built with unfired bricks given by the employer. But when the season of brick-making was over, and the kiln became almost empty, the employer asked us to move into these big houses that had been recently constructed by the employer himself. Kayal was very happy to see the house because it had a lot of space. To be able to enter the house without bending was a relief too,” Ashok remembers. “The malik has promised to build more such houses in the coming season and we might be lucky enough to get one,” Ashok says.

A few government officials visited the brick kiln, along with their employer, and collected the details of all the workers, including Ashok Sahoo and his family. “They took photographs and asked many detailed questions about our family, and wrote everything down on paper,” narrates Ashok. “After a month`s time, I was given a card that had my photograph; the government official had told me that I could avail of many benefits with that card,” he adds.

Ashok is referring to the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (BoCWWB) registration. Ashok says no money was taken from them for the registration. However, neither Ashok nor Kayal is aware of any of the entitlements available to them under the registration. Nevertheless, they are very proud to own a sarkari card. They have an Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) card too.

“Earlier, we used the water in the rivulet a little far away for drinking and bathing. Now, the brick kiln has fixed water tanks. We can use this water to drink and cook,” says Kayal, adding, “but a majority of us use it for washing clothes. For cooking and drinking, we prefer using the water from the bore well.”

Ashok has taken an advance of Rs 30,000 from his malik. “At the end of the season, malik will pay me my wages after settling the loan amount,” he says.

Kayal is happy with her life in the brick kiln. She says that she has befriended the Oriya teacher, who teaches children in the makeshift school made by the employer. Children between 4 and 14 years of age are studying in different classes in the school. “Next year, my son will also be taught by the same teacher,” Kayal says.

Anganwadi workers visited the brick kiln. During the peak brick-making season, the brick kiln inmates were provided with nutritional food. “Nutritional food means eight eggs in a month and one kilogram of maize for three months. But when the rest of the Oriya workers went away, it was stopped,” says Kayal. The public distribution system (PDS) is not implemented in this brick kiln.

“We go back to the villages only in case of a family emergency. If we travel often to the village, our expenses and liabilities will increase. Village means festivals, marriages, deaths and births. The money just flows away,” says Ashok.

“As long as our malik hires us, we will prefer to work here. Life is smooth and peaceful. As long as one has good health, working in the kiln is not a difficult task,” says Ashok.