Delhiwale: The thermocol man

A glimpse into Balram’s aspirations

He has a theory on dreams. “These sapne (dreams) don’t come to all,” says Balram. “People with less money don’t dream.”

Balram pedals around the Capital on his rickety cart collecting thermocol pieces, the kind that are used to cushion electrical gadgets or delicate furniture items from breaking during transport. (Mayank Austen Soofi)

He patiently explains that by dream he doesn’t mean what one sees while sleeping, but the things one aspires for when fully conscious.

Ok, but surely there must be at least one thing he aspires for?

Balram takes some time to think before answering—“To earn enough to keep my family well-fed, to keep having a job.”

The nature of his work is part of a niche. He pedals around the Capital on his rickety cart collecting thermocol pieces, the kind that are used to cushion electrical gadgets or delicate furniture items from breaking during transport. In fact, this afternoon in south Delhi’s Green Park he is on a roadside, piling up a mound of such pieces into a gigantic bundle bond in a net.

A native of Gorakhpur, in UP, Balram, 35, arrived in the city 8 years ago. “I had no dreams back then too. I left my village because finding work in a big city seemed worth the trouble of leaving your des.” He has no regrets, he confirms.

By now, Balram is a full-fledged Delhiite, having set up his roots firmly in the city’s soil. He lives in Okhla with wife, Meena, and sons, Soni and Kishen. “They go to school,” he points out.

Firmly tying the knot of the net in which he has gathered the thermocol, Balram says that over the years he has developed work-related contacts and while leaving his house at 8 every morning, he knows exactly where he has to go to find spare thermocol. “Sometimes I go to factories or warehouses, and sometimes to houses where people have just shifted.” Every evening he sells the collection to a dealer in Okhla.

Now Balram single-handedly transfers the pile onto his cart. He climbs on the rider’s seat and says, confession like, “I don’t have a dream but I do want, someday soon, to rid myself from the cycle of byaj (interest)... I had borrowed money to build a house in the village... earlier we had no house of our own. My real savings for the future can only start after I’ve paid all my interests.”

He now pedals away, the thermocol on the cart glinting from far away, like a snow-encrusted mountain peak. He returns home at 5pm.