DAILY SALT

 "Please Pass the Salt"

 
 
  Home to India's second largest salt-mines, the small coastal town of Marakkanam has a shoreline that lies beneath the sea's restless backwaters. Here, the chemical compound called sodium chloride is harvested through the process of evaporation. Ideal conditions for this natural saltmaking under the sun include high temperatures and good winds. Rain occasionally plays spoilsport, mixing with the brine and resulting in a recipe gone wrong. The shiny heaped mounds of salt however hide a sad, secret story—the story of the salt-makers. 

  Men and women work in scorching heat and absolutely without any shelter. The brine is boiling hot, and all that people have with them are rudimentary tools. Salt has an impossible stickiness that nobody ever gets used to. Skin problems have surfaced at some point in their lives. Sight fails the workers early, the white-hot glare of drying salt blinds their eyes. Nobody wears protective shades, they cannot afford them. After all, it is a seasonal job.

  This industry predominantly consists of Dalits—who essentially are allocated the low-paying, labour-intensive jobs of being loadmen and coolies. The traditional task of cleaning the salt-mines is given to them. Saltmines have to be emptied during summer showers. Salt that has not been harvested when it is due has to be thrown away. Men speak of the sting of overgrown salt-crystals, of a sharp pain that never leaves them for days.

  This is not the only pain that people here speak about. The loadmen carry several hundred bags of salt a week, each bag weighing a hundred kilos. To forget the ache and the cramps, to sleep at night, to be strong enough to report for the next day, these men drown themselves in arrack and alcohol. Early death follows endless drinking. The result, a population that clearly shows a shocking profusion of young widows.

  Auctioned by the Indian Government to private contractors, men working in these open air salt mines are paid a daily wage of Rs.170. Women take home an inferior wage of Rs. 120. Absence of a strong trade union lobby and the commercialism of employers have prevented workers from even achieving their demand for a decent wage. Gandhi epitomized the struggle for salt making it symbolically important in a freedom movement that defied imperialism. But in his nation, those who season our lives with salt, lack a tasteful existence.

Text: Meena Kandasamy