Also Waiting for Godot.

Images from our gig economy.

Two roads meet in the urban jungle.

There we set up shop with grit.

Each morning brings new twists and turns,

No guarantees, just lessons learned.

The largest employer in India is not Bharatbhai Sarkar, the Railways, or any of our current oligarchs. It’s the streets of India, where people help each other through time-tested informal networks. Every major crossroads, naka, chowk, mukku, or X road in our cities and small towns is home to one such network that provides daily employment to millions of Indians, one or two generations away from caste-enforced agricultural labour or trade in the hinterland, now building our cities or offering cheap labour to factories.

In the last century, which ended with the death of labour, they would’ve had a little or some voice. In the current century, they are invisible, like cycles and pedestrians. And once you notice them, you cannot unsee the thousands you will find at major squares, railway stations, gates of industrial estates, and almost everywhere, waiting for work every morning. If they do not find work that day, they return home hungry.

Labour Market outside Mankhurd Station, Mumbai.

Khar Road Station, Mumbai.

Abyudya Nagar, Cotton Green, Mumbai.

Zaveri Bazaar.

Mulund West.

Currey Road. Not a naka but a tower under construction that hires daily wagers

Hindmata, Dadar.

Painters at Null Bazaar

Nana Chowk.

Palm Beach Road, APMC Vashi

Look! No bags or mobile phones.

These two images were taken at the Labour Chowk on Seshadri Road, Bangalore, sometime in 2007. Before mobile phones trickled down, people carried bags like they do now.

We are never without a bag or a mobile phone now.

A carpenter advertises his services at a Labour Naka in Vashi.

Those waiting can be customers, too. Here, a toothpowder salesman demonstrates his product at the Gokhale Road Labour Naka in Thane.

Art and organisation in a Labour Market.

Jai Bhim.

We Built This City on Rock and Roll NOT.

Signs of organisation based on region, in this case, Telangana. Seen in Mumbai.

An invisible worker leaves his mark.

If you want a free copy of my digital photo book Vishwakarma—The Fate of Workers in the 21st Century, send me a DM with your email, and I will send it to you. You can read it on your computer or tab.