A Little Orissa in the heart of Surat

SURAT: This can be called a no woman's land, or Little Orissa, for that matter. The men pack themselves up into a 10x15ft 'kholi (room)', sometimes 15 at a time. It's tough life for the Oriya migrants in Surat. Still, it's better than eating mango kernels for survival back home. Surat is to an ordinary Oriya what Dubai is perhaps to a Ker-alite or New Jersey to a Gujarati.It promises a better life, even if less than 10 per cent of Oriyas stay here with their families. For those who do, there are six Oriya medi-um primary schools run by the Surat Municipal Corporation, which advertises in newspapers in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack when it falls short of teachers. In Pandesara, where almost half of Surat's Oriya population of 5 lakh lives, many shops have sign-boards in Oriya. You can't make out that the swanky office in Gadana-gar says 'Micro Finance Limited' unless you know the script. Labour-ers line up every day to deposit their savings in the company, which has its headquarters at Rasulgarh in Bhubaneswar. Across the road is the office of Abhimanyu Jena, who charges 3 per cent to deliver money to any address in Orissa within 24 hours. "Some Rs 40 crore are transferred every month from Surat to Orissa through banks, post offices and people like me," says Jena, a for- mer textile worker who has made it big since his arrival in Surat 25 years ago. Almost every day, trains like the Okha-Puri Express, the Ahmedabad-Puri Express, the Navjeevan Express and the Howrah Express bring more and more Oriya mi-grants to Surat, most of them from the impoverished districts of Gan-jam, Baleshwar and Kendrapada. Some of them come on their own, others are lured by labour contrac-tors who get a 10 per cent cut from their wages. On an average, an Oriya worker earns about Rs 100 a day in Surat and almost 85 per cent of the workers are engaged in the textile industry. Oriya workers, says a power-loom owner, are preferred because they are more laborious than men from Bihar and UP. "I get about 20 per cent more work out of Oriyas in comparison to workers from other states," admits Bhagwan Das, a dyes and printing unit owner. Oriyas, who outnumber any other migrant community in Surat, started pouring in ever since World War II when they fled Rangoon. They started working as cooks, domestic helps and garden-ers in Surat. The second exodus came when jute mills started clos-ing down in West Bengal because of union problems. Says Abhimanyu Sahu, whose wife Pramodini Sahu is the lone Oriya municipal corporator, "Living conditions in Surat are pathetic. Still these workers manage to save between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 in a year and remit the money back home to their families." The savings, however, come only if they share accommodation with more than a dozen other per-sons and survive on a diet of 'bhat (rice)', 'dali (dal)' and 'tarkari (veg-etable curry)'. A number of people like Pandov Bhuiyan run a mess for these workers, charging Rs 750 a month for three meals a day. "After work-ing for 12-15 hours a day, these men can't be expected to cook their meals," says Bhuiyan. Only those who want to make merry once in a while can afford 'macho tarkari (fish curry)', available in Oriya restaurants across Pandesara. Other diversions are of course the sex and liquor joints and the nu-merous video parlours that screen X-rated films for men who have to stay away from their families for up to a year at a stretch.