2016 Aug 16
By Azraa Killru
Whether you are a fan of Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland, you are in for a bit of a surprise if you ever visit the shops in Pettah. With the agility that puts Spiderman to shame, the Pettah boys climb racks and shelves with such ease to bring down goods for their customers.
Thousands of young men dominate Pettah, the marketplace to buy anything and everything. From the thousands, just a few hundreds are business owners, be it multi storey shops or street vendors who sell their merchandise off a wooden plank or a plastic sheet spread out on the sides of the narrow roads. The rest are day workers or sales staff earning a living at one of the myriad of shops situated at Pettah. The majority of them are young men, ages varying from teenage to late twenties. However a few shops also employ young women too.
Many questions pop in your head regarding what brings them here, to toil under the sun or grind under the hawk eyed gazes of their bosses. Hailing from different parts of the country, these young men and women try to earn some money to send back home. Families in the rural areas depend on the meagre salary earned by their children working in a shop in Pettah, not too aware about the labour involved. Educational levels tend to be pretty low, most of them being school drop outs or not pursuing higher studies due to lack of interest in educational achievements or family situations forcing responsibilities onto their shoulders at a very young age.
Talking to a few of them, you realise that it’s not easy to work here on a daily basis because of the workload and the attitude of people around them. Most of the shops are too small, sometimes the size of elevators. And then you’ve got a whole lot of them cramped inside narrow buildings. If you are claustrophobic, tough luck mate! The heat, the crowd and the lack of space makes fresh air scare. However, most of the shops are somewhat ventilated – to let you remain a little sane, at least. The lucky few who work under thoughtful shop owners benefit with reasonable pay and also support at difficult times.
There is also another bunch of workers who don’t find jobs in Pettah to merely support their families back home but they appear with a strategy in mind. They are the learners, the future businessmen, here to understand how the market works, gather skills, map out opportunities and enhance their abilities to set up the next big game player in the confusing structure that is Pettah Market. If you ask them what brings them here when they could work in a corporate or some other white collar job due to their education and skills, they simply answer that they want experience. Half of them are attracted to the world of Pettah due to family influence. Fathers, brothers, uncles all working in Pettah serve as a magnetic force that pulls them in too so that the family business can continue. Then there is the rest, the self-starters, hungry for their prospects. They know the big bucks a successful business in Pettah can bring in exceeds the current pay levels of graduates at corporates, only if you know how to play your cards right.
Interesting tales can be heard all around because the young men spend a greater part of their lives infused in the atmosphere of the marketplace. Leaving home to earn a living in the City is a big deal because they have to consider the dependents as well as their cost of living. Most of them rent out squalid boarding rooms and manage with meals served in the vicinity with no regard to health or hygiene.
The labourers are vital for the functioning of the system in place. Their presence offer consumers convenience. Their work adds to our economy and propels the businesses forward. But the only issue is – They remain stagnant. Rooted to the same job for years, with hardly any intention to take the next big step in their lives, most of these young men never dare to picture themselves in better positions. Their minds don’t conjure the vision of being their own boss one day or to follow their dreams. The underlying problem is they are never taught to seek beyond the current situation. They are not encouraged. It’s not a pressing problem for anyone around them but to themselves. They settle for what they get, unaware of their potential to take their experiences and enriched knowledge to a whole new level.
It’s not easy to white wash the life of Pettah or revolutionise the lives of the young men seeking income there with a big bang. Gigantic measures will remain lifeless and futile. Small steps taken in the right direction to address the issues can bring about a significant change in the lives of these young men and women so that they are motivated to work towards better goals and seek growth in their career and personal lives. Neglecting them is a terrible loss for our economy. They have the skills, the energy and the power to turnaround their lives. Why not give them the right push? Educate them what other prospects exist, how they can improve themselves, why they can work for a better tomorrow that brings them out of their day jobs in the dusty streets.
