HYDERABAD: Ashok Kantam, a truck driver from Nizamabad, moved to Muscat, Oman, after his crop in his village failed for the fourth time. He had to depend too much on the monsoon and the right rates to make a living. This is when he decided to go to the Gulf and make money. Things didn’t quite turn out this way initially when he wasn’t able to send money back home for the first few months. He has found comfort there now, but is frustrated because of the living conditions.
“From the taxi driver to the government, everyone exploits you. Companies who hire the labourers don’t pay enough. There is a desperate need for the Telangana government to release funds to help people here. Kuleru Debaraj is not the first and won’t be the last, unless we can find a solution.” he said.
Kuleru Devaraj is a 35-year-old construction labourer who died in a hit and run case in Saudi Arabia.The accused is still not punished and his body still hasn’t reached his hometown. Caught in the injustice Devaraj cannot rest in peace even weeks after his death. The company he was working for said they won’t pay for the fees required to take his body to his hometown in Telangana. Even the governement gave up. It was a few from the Telugu community who raised Rs 6 lakh and arranged to send his body to his family.
Ashok moved to Muscat four years ago and his time there hasn’t been great and has come to realise the social issues and decided to do something about it.
He converted his frustration into a Telugu song addressing these issues faced by the Indian labourers in the Gulf. Called Bharatheeya Paurulara Gulf Desa Bhanisalara, this song has started garnering the attention of the netizens with more than 3k views and was a comforting melody to the hard workers there.
He lives in a small room which he shares with four others. His working hours are unpredictable. They start at daybreak and can go on till midnight, occasionally even sunrise. There is no or little security to jobs of these Telanganites that took off. Even after working so hard, this SSC-pass pass truck driver can hardly make ends meet.
The song highlights the difficulties of many such labourers in the Gulf. He refers to them as prisoners and bonded labourers. That they came out in the red hot sun to earn, but in the name of money, they are just melting. How looking at the burden on their loans, their eyelids got heavy. Some families in Telangana don’t hear from their loved ones in the Gulf for weeks, only to realise that they died or were arrested for some malpractice that they more often than not are framed for. Even culturally, it is difficult for them to adjust due to the difference in the societies. The labourers’ backs hurt more from bending in for the Arab Sheikhs than because of working.
When asked why Ashok continues to live and work in Muscat even after all that he and many like him have been through, he compares the Gulf to a mother and says, “She may beat you up and make you cry, but at the end of the day, she feeds you. And that’s all anybody wants, to eat and sleep. I’m able to do that here.”