Behroz Irani

At the Patel Agiary in Nana Peth, I meet Behroz Irani. Behroz is employed at the Agiary as a menial. His job is to sweep and swab the premises for which he gets 2500 a month. He earns an additional 2000 a month by providing his services as a pall-bearer for the disposal of the dead, a work in which he says there is a lot of ‘barkat’. 2000 seem like 20,000. He lives in a one-room tenement with his wife and 2 daughters. Behroz is 42. Only an SSC pass, he used to work in a bakery for only 450 a month before he landed the job of pall-bearer, and subsequently menial. He tells me there are others too doing this work. I have to meet them next.

Behroz Irani swabs the floor of the Patel Agiary at Nana Peth