‘Phulmati, what happened? You are sitting as though you have grown roots into the soil.’

‘I can’t go out to work. I have a fever,’ she said, sounding exhausted.

‘Won’t go to work? You have to. Come on. Get up. It’s always “can’t go to work” with you. Always excuses! Get up if you don’t want a slap.’

‘How can she go to work? Can’t you see she is burning up with fever?’ Suhagmoni pleaded with the sardar.

‘You don’t talk. Go to work! Go!’ Budhuwa sardar shouted and sent her away.

‘This sardar is not human. Only work, work and work. Whether it is fever or an upset stomach, one has to work. These people will make even the dead work to get tips from the sahabs,’ Suhagmoni muttered angrily under her breath.

‘Oi Phulmati, get up. I am asking you one last time. Or else I’ll drag you by your hair.’

Phulmati stood up slowly and, putting her basket on her head, followed the line of workers. The sardar went to the next coolie line. For every coolie, the sardars received a commission, something between one to two paise. This was taken out of each coolie’s daily wages, so even if the coolies were sick, they were forced to work. This was profitable for both the manager and the sardar.

The sardars were ex-coolies who worked as middle-men between the coolies and the management. They would often go back to their home states to recruit more coolies. With the commissions they received for each new recruit, they were richer than the other coolies. Many even owned land and cattle.

Walking slowly, Phulmati went to the section where plucking was in progress.

‘The sardar did not listen, did he?’ Suhagmoni asked angrily.

‘Why would he listen? There will be peace only if I die.’

‘Don’t ever speak of such things,’ said Dukhi, who was plucking leaves nearby.

‘I don’t have anyone. It will be good if I die.’

‘Who do you think we have? There are many people like us who have no one. Our sorrows are the same. But all of us don’t say that we want to die,’ admonished Suhagmoni.

Phulmati didn’t utter a word. Among the crowd of women and young girls, she kept plucking tea leaves with a gloomy face. The basket on her back was slowly filling up. The pressure of the strap on her forehead, from which the basket was hanging, had started to weigh her down. Emptying out all the leaves into a bigger wicker basket nearby, Phulmati started plucking again.

Next to her, Dukhi was immersed in her own grief. When the people of the famine-stricken village met the labour agent for the first time, they felt as if some angel had arrived to save them from poverty and hunger. The man dressed in fine clothes and gold accessories told them about a land named Assam where gold was found underneath trees. He also told them that there was no dearth of food and work in that land. They believed the man and followed him onto a boat. After the boat ride, they had boarded a ship. And right at that moment they understood that they had been tricked. Once the ship was stuffed with people, a journey of indescribable hardship had begun. Even now, whenever Dukhi remembered those days, she would wilt in shame. On that ship, with no privacy, Dukhi and the rest were compelled to answer the call of nature in front of everyone. Having very little to eat, they became emaciated. They withered under the sun and got drenched in the torrential rains. One after the other they fell sick: fever, cholera and the pox. Without any treatment, Dukhi’s husband and her three children passed away like many others. Along with the dead bodies, the dying were also thrown into the waters.