Down but not out: Teacher turns into labourer to keep wolf from the door
Avneet Kaur
Kapurthala, June 27
Nishant Kumar, who is a teacher, has also worked as an auto-rickshaw driver and a vegetable vendor. As he strives hard to make both ends meet amid the lockdown, he has now chosen to work as a daily-wage labourer at a grain market in Kapurthala. With options shut, his meagre salary of Rs 6,000 is not enough and it is the only way he can feed his family of five, he feels.
Talking to The Tribune, he said that before the lockdown he was working both as a teacher and a part-time auto rickshaw driver, however, the curfew announced in March to contain the spread of Covid-19 badly affected his driver’s job and forced him to turn into a vegetable vendor.
“Petrol and diesel costs are at an all-time high and as per administration guidelines, the auto driver are not allowed to ferry more than three passengers. Therefore, the cost we bear for fuel is more than the earnings. So, I am not into that job anymore,” says Kumar, who teaches at the Government Primary School, Bhagat Pur. “Moreover, I suffered huge loss in the vegetable business. The money I invested to buy veggie supplies got wasted as I hardly earned any profit”, he says, adding that as no investment is required for labouring, he opted to work as a daily-wager.
His workaday life is now different than ever. Having no job to do as a pre-primary teacher — since the schools have long been shuttered — and with no schedule of online classes for pre-primary kids in place, he spends a large slice of his day at the market hauling sacks of maize. “I go to grain market around six in the morning and return home by 9 or 10 in the night. I work with seven other labourers, and we all together lift around 200 to 300 maize sacks weighing 20 to 25 kg per bag”, Kumar tells, adding that after working for nearly 10-12 hours, he manages to earn Rs 300-350 per day.
He further said he has been working as teacher on a contractual basis with the state education department for last 8-9 years, but has not been regularised yet. “I got married a few years ago but my wife left as I was earning too little. The state government should accommodate contractual teachers and volunteers in the pre-primary classes as these are being solely managed by education providers or EGS-AIE volunteers”, he suggests.
Kumar says that he is not the only one who has been struggling to cope with the existential crisis for there are other teachers from Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Pathankot and Moga, who besides teaching, have also undertaken various jobs – like drivers, labourers, painters and waiters to name a few – so they can manage their finances and repay their debts.
