It was like every other day for Murugan. He gets up by 4.30 in the morning, has one slice of plain bread for breakfast along with a glass of warm water and he heads off to work. Works starts at 7.30 for him but he needs to leave home by 5.30 to catch the earliest bus to his workplace. It's a good 45 minutes bus ride for him because he rents a room at the outskirts of the city. Not that he wants a place so far but it's the best he can afford at a nice MYR30 a month with bathroom sharing.
He reaches work about 6.45, gets to his locker, puts on his uniform and his signature Nike cap of which he bought with one year's saving. It was something he rewarded himself with after all the hard work he had put into his work. On top of that, he needed a cap to keep the sun from frying him whilst working.
It was a pretty tiring job, having to wake up so early in the morning and work about 10 hours a day. It was never easy for him, hauling bags over his shoulder and piling them up into a specialised machine for such bags. The smile was often unbearable but it was all part of his job. Even rain couldn't get in the way of his job. If Murugan and his team did not work for one day, they'd get a whole lot of complains from the locals for being irresponsible. Rain or shine, work had to resume for Murugan. Not very nice eh?
He finishes work about 6pm everyday after doing his usual round around the community. At the end of his shift his skin burns from all the sun, his body aches all over from all the hauling, feet hurt from the walking, body smells horrible from the sweat plus other odour accumulated from his work. That is Murugan's daily working life. Despite all the hard work he puts in his day work, he barely makes enough for food minus the rent.
You might have already guess what Murugan does, but if you haven't, he's a garbage collector. He wakes up early every morning, hauls arse to work, collects garbage dished out by people like you and me, gets paid barely enough but continues doing what he can.
Murugan's family was far from being well to do, living in the slumps of the city. Having only education up till he was 15 years of age, he really couldn't do anything else and he was accepted for the job due to a government job allocation programme launched to reduce unemployment. He jumped on the opportunity to have some income after his drunkard father left the family leaving his mother alone, who passed on after contracting tuberculosis of which until now Murugan cannot forgive himself for not having been able to do anything to heal her. He simply couldn't afford it.
Outsider like ourselves who see people like Murugan hauling our garbage probably assume these guys are delinquents but most of us don't know these guys are doing what then can to make ends meet. Just like us, sometimes we can only do what we can, and there are times after we have done what we can, people still think we haven't done enough or we are simply unappreciated.
The point to take home is to really do what we can and at the end of day be able to look into the mirror knowing we have done what we done with sincerity and honesty. Someday, you'll be appreciate twice or trice as more.......... those who don't will one day realise they'd made a mistake.......
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