Mounika Earth Works

Out here at H. No. 7-75 in Alluri Seetharamaraju Nagar, the dust is just part of the job. Being in Srirampur Colony, we are usually surrounded by the sound of heavy engines idling. We handle a lot of soil and rock moving, so our boots are never clean for long. The yard at Teegalpahad is often filled with backhoes and tractors that need greasing after a long day in the dirt. It’s a quiet enough area until we start the machines up in the morning. Mancherial gets pretty warm, and sitting in a cab all day can be exhausting, even with a small fan blowing. We keep our paperwork in a metal cabinet that’s a bit rusted at the bottom. Our neighbors in the colony know us by the sound of the equipment coming home at night. We don’t really bother with a big storefront because the real work happens out in the fields or on construction sites. There are maps pinned to the wall showing where the different pipes and cables are supposed to go. Most of our days are spent checking hydraulics or talking to truck drivers about where to dump the next load of earth. It’s hard work and it makes your back ache, but it is what we know how to do. We usually wrap things up when the sun goes down, unless there’s a big hole that needs filling before the rain starts.