This boy, who seems younger than 18, is digging with a pneumatic jack hammer. They have dug up the street to lay electric cables underground. The young guy is wearing flip-flops and no protective gear such as work boots, gloves, protective glasses, or a hard hat. The jack hammer is powered by a compressor on a tractor. The hole to the right of the tractor has been dug up for the new pole which is supposed to be used for the underground cables. Of the two poles seen, one is a telephone pole and the other one is for a high intensity street lamp which has been turned off to save on power, and they are back to the old incandescent lamp (which is on another pole!!). Obviously aesthetics is not high on the list. After the cables are in, they don't resurface the street; they just push in the dirt that was dug up and it is not quite level with the street. Shoddy work is the norm, and there is no accountability.
"No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil. " -James Lowell, A Glance behind the Curtain.
“You'll never succeed in idealizing hard work. Before you can dig mother earth you've got to take off your ideal jacket. The harder a man works, at brute labor, the thinner becomes his idealism, the darker his mind.” -D.H. Lawrence
9 comments:
Tell me about it! Things work backward here and no one is accountable either.
They resurface a road, spending millions of dollars.
Then the elecrtic company will dig up the same road to lay cables. They'll throw some marl into the damaged surface and leave it at that.
Then the Telephone company will come along and dig up another section of the same road to work on or lay cables. They don't use the same section as the electric company. So another area of the recently reseurfaced road is damaged and is covered with marl.
The Water company then comes along and, you guessed it, they dig another section of the road.
They don't come together and dig the road before it is resurfaced. Nor do they decide to just dig in one area. Nor do they join together to fix the road they have just dug up.
The rains come and wash away the marl and eat away the surface of the road until eventually the road is absolutely horrible!
It is ridiculous!!
Just dropping by to say thank you for your gentle comment on my current post!
Have a nice week ahead!
Being the safety freak I am , I can barely look at his feet without thinking of how they will look without a toe or two!!
Thank you for visiting my blog and for the kind comments.
I've visited Hyderbad in 2004. What a lovely place. I'd really love to see pics from here :)
Hi,
Your blog has some thought-inspiring photography and reflections. It's very different to get an insider's view of India, as compared with Australia.
Thanks for dropping around at my blog too, great to get a chance to share pics.
I like the quotes at the bottom of each post - keep 'em coming! :)
Regards,
David
David's Nature Photos
Tech Blog
"Interesting"... to say the least.
THAT'S CRAZY!!!! do they even apply for a permit for that kind of a job? and do they even approve it with no safety standards??? by the way, i thought you were japanese because you write SO well in japanese!!
@zakscloset - I don't think there are any permits/licenses. Even if there were, enforcing is almost impossible because of the sheer number of people and also because of rampant corruption. If caught, people would just pay their way out. In fact, most buildings violate several building codes, and the actual work does not correspond to the approved plan. If caught, the municipal corporation "regularizes" the work after payment of some nominal fine, if at all. Most of the time, the matter is resolved by paying off the officials. Most buildings don't follow any fire codes that may exist, and are accidents waiting to happen.
In this type of a job (as in the pic), the work is outsourced/subcontracted out to smaller players. The recent case of underaged kids (10yrs old) making kids garments for GAP
was also a case of unauthorized subcontract work. In that case, the evil subcontractor did not even pay the kids!! He just "bought" the kids from their parents and put them to work in his sweatshop.
Thank you for your kinds words and encouragement. It takes me a while to compose a message as I struggle a lot beyond a few words.
My Japanese is really poor, so I hope you don't mind me trying it. Please correct me if you could - onegaishimasu. In fact, I learn from your blog because it is bilingual and I use "Firefox" with "Rikaichan add-on" for quick lookup of meanings of new words.
Look at the muscles on that guy. Tee! Hee! Cute!
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