Fifteen-year-old Vasant from Balangir district of Odisha has spent most of his life in brick kilns in various districts in Andhra Pradesh. His parents had migrated when he was barely two years old. He used to loiter around the brick kiln as a child. “My father says I used to mix mud and fill the mould with my tiny hands when I was three or four,” says Vasant.

For the last eight years, Vasant and his family have been in the same brick kiln in Ranga Reddy, and Vasant has worked as a loader for the last two years. .

Work at the brick kiln is seasonal in nature. Almost all migrant workers, including Vasant’s parents, go back to the village after the season is over. Vasant stays back. He says this is the period when loading work begins and he stays back to do this work. His parents had taken an advance amount that they could not repay; they were allowed to go home only because Vasant stayed back. Vasant may be seen as a pawn, pledged to the employer, to work off his father’s debt. Vasant’s father, Ovi Chhatriya, had taken a loan of Rs 55,000 from the kiln owner, which Vasant now tries to repay by loading bricks and ash. Usually, four workers together load the trucks. A truckload of ash means Rs 1,600 for the team they manage to load only a single truck a day.

Loading work is strenuous and physically demanding, and for a 15-year-old boy, it is especially stressful. However, Vasant works all through the day. “If I am sick for a day, the employer doesn’t say anything, but a second day of sickness is not tolerated,” says Vasant. .

All Vasant’s child-like innocence has vanished. He says he cannot visualise a life outside the brick kiln. It has become so much a part and parcel of his life.