Short Story: Rags by Neha Srivastava

In this short story, Neha Srivastava tells the story of a hygiene worker, their aspirations, challenges, and dreams.

Incinerator ash, animal carcasses, plastics, vegetable peels, blood-stained sanitary pads, pieces of broken lego, some torn porn magazines, crumpled paper, cardboards, and a piece of bread was all that Kach found in his booty. Today there was not much for him to pick except some newspapers, cardboard boxes, and a stale piece of bread. Kach ate the bread in one gulp, perhaps that was his meal for the day. He sat on the so called ‘mountain of shame’, a landfill that had become a high mountain now. He sat on his butt, his knees touching his chin, he gazed at the eagles whirling across the garbage mountain, waiting to swoop down to pick up an animal carcass. They were not his competitors but the dogs were. He rubbed his stomach after gulping the bread, showed his middle finger to the dog who growled at him, ‘Got it before you, you dog’. Kach stamped his foot at the scraggly dog, it ran off in fright. He hated dogs, they always managed to sniff food before him.