For Botad, which sends its young people to Surat and waits for the money to come back.
A town that exports its young
Botad trades cotton, and it does something else that shapes it more: it sends a steady stream of young men to the diamond polishing units of Surat. They go at eighteen or twenty, live in shared rooms, work long hours and send money home. Salangpur, one of the busiest pilgrimage sites in Saurashtra, is nearby and brings its own traffic through.
The split household
What this produces is a family living in two places at once. Parents here describe a son they see at festivals, whose life they know only in outline, whose money pays for the house they are sitting in.
The young men describe the mirror image: a home they fund and do not live in, and an obligation that grew before they had a chance to consider whether they wanted it. Diamond work is piece-rated and hard on the eyes and back, and it is not usually chosen so much as entered.
What the work addresses
Whether the arrangement is still a decision. Frequently it was reasonable at nineteen and nobody has revisited it at thirty-four. The money continues, the assumption continues, and the person doing the work has never once been asked what he would prefer.
Asking that out loud does not necessarily change the arrangement. It changes whether it is chosen.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati - which means it works equally whether you are in Botad or in a room in Surat.
Frequently asked questions
- I work in Surat but my family is in Botad. Which applies?
- Either. Sessions are online, so where you sit does not matter.
- Do you work with piece-rate workers?
- Yes. Irregular earnings change how planning works, and that is accounted for.
