The festive season's around the corner and I had a question in my mind. These discovery and Nat Geo folks have had a tour of almost all the production lines of the world, but why have they never visited a firecracker factory? Well, never mind, if they didn't then I will.
In the most remote corner of Chennai, there is a deserted, two-storey, white house. Every morning you may see cars and minivans entering the premises. As you pass through the front door, you enter a rather empty hall, with just one round table and some chairs. A man sitting on it and shuffling through papers (maybe about orders and supplies) is a common sight. Beyond the hall, there is the kitchen(or as you may call the "mess" of the factory). There a guy is cooking some rice and sambhar(it's just Orange water with some vegetables floating on it). On moving further, you come across a door, guarded by two men. The assembly area. The door led to a flight of stairs descending down to hell (or as you may call basement). Then there comes a room lit by three sodium lamps and black walls (not paint, but fire). There is a no-smoking sign on the wall, it wasn't there from the beginning, it was only when one of the workers lit a match that they realised the whole place could blow up.
Aah! The workers. The perfect example of Indian diversity. Children from all corners of the country work together. The factory believes in tradition, thus, everything is "handmade". The assembly begins with children who cut strips of wrapper and cardboards, another group rolls them into various 3d shapes, the next one fills in some gunpowder with their bare hands, and the last one press on some arsenic and glass and seals it with the wick.
As far as job security is concerned, these children have the most sound job that destiny could offer. Their employers employ them until death, that too without any conditions. Moreover, they can begin working at the age of four and after some fifteen years of faithful service, they die either of arsenic poisoning, silicosis, fever, respiratory infections or the most common cause malnutrition. Once the work gets over the workers are served food, the very food that was being cooked earlier. Every child gets a third of what we usually eat as a one time meal.
After that they are locked in a hall (for safety reasons), where they sleep, hoping that they never wake up again.
So now, next time you go out to buy crackers, you still be knowing the amount of hard work it actually took to make that "Sutli bomb"...