An organised mess: The racing vanwalas of Karwan Bazar
Every night, hundreds of vanwalas in Karwan Bazar carry vegetable sacks and fruit crates to warehouses after they are unloaded from the incoming trucks. An interesting system of calling out at the trucks, developed by these vanwalas themselves, decides who gets to deliver produce from which truck
Standing on rickshaw vans in front of the Petrobangla building, opposite to the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, Masud and around a dozen other young men in their early 20s were shouting at car lights approaching them from both Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue and the Hatirjheel side.
Any vehicle that looked like a truck from far, they screamed at it, "1, 2, 3..." It was a competition that Masud, a young van puller of Karwan Bazar, participated in every night.
If the vehicle turned out to be a truck carrying vegetables or fruits to Karwan Bazar, then the van puller who shouted "1!" at the lights, gets to deliver the first slot of vegetable sacks or fruit crates to the warehouse.
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"Every night, we start calling on trucks from half past nine. We have a simple rule, the first ones calling out at the trucks get to deliver their produce," Masud informed us. It was around 10 at night when we were talking to him, interrupting his race to get the delivery gig.
"There are two types of trucks here – 'serial' and 'un-serial'. Shouting here helps us get the un-serial trucks, though some of us here have names on the serial trucks' list" he said (serial trucks mean each van will get enough crates to earn Tk200, whereas un-serial ones have lower number of crates, averaging at Tk150 per van).
He hurriedly ended the conversation with us as the vehicle he called out turned out to be a vegetable truck. He raced his rickshaw van behind the truck and soon disappeared inside Karwan Bazar.
Masud is one of the hundreds of van pullers who deliver vegetable sacks and fruit crates to warehouses in Karwan Bazar after they are unloaded from incoming trucks, or deliver them to different markets inside the city, or to resellers who put the produce on other trucks that transport them to different areas.
For each delivery, the vanwalas earn Tk150 to Tk200. The work continues from 10pm till 4am.
From conversation with dozens of vanwalas, and leaders of a van puller association, we came to know there are around a thousand active van pullers in Karwan Bazar.
Some of them work here as part-timers, but many we interviewed said pulling vans here is the only job they have been doing their entire life. And one of them is Jahangir from Jashore. He has been working here for more than two decades.
When Masud and other young people were racing to get the job, middle-aged Jahangir was sitting on some parked vans and playing Ludu on a mobile phone with others like him.
"We don't run after random trucks," Jahangir said, adding, "our group, the one you see here playing and chatting, are waiting for vegetable trucks from Chuadanga. Until they arrive, we wait."
Many vanwalas like those in Jahangir's group from Chhapra potti, Wasa potti or Phol potti have their own system where they maintain a list of who gets to carry produce from which truck. So, they wait until those exact trucks arrive.
Given their age and health, it was understandable why they were not running after the trucks like young vanwalas like Masud. But it significantly affected their income.
For example, where Masud can earn somewhere between Tk800 and Tk1,200 from doing half a dozen deliveries per night, Jahangir said he earns something between Tk400 to Tk600.
An organised mess
After interviewing several van pullers and their association leaders, we learned that in the past, the process of getting to the trucks was a mess.
"People used to fight and quarrel often to decide who gets to deliver," said Mizan, a van puller association leader who was maintaining the serials of vanwalas registered under their association so that everyone gets a shot at work. "Now the system is better. There is no shouting, or fights," he added.
To an outsider it may still look like a mess. However, in reality, it is an organised mess, with each person well aware of his role in it.
Around 300 active vanwalas are part of the association that Mizan represents, whereas the number of overall registered members is around 800.
Mizan said many of these vanwalas are not active in Karwan Bazar at the moment. But there are many others who are not registered with the association; they either work in groups, or independently, in different parts of Karwan Bazar.
We were curious to know what they mean by 'serial' and 'un-serial trucks'.
"It is about how many crates, or sacks are there for each van. Each sack costs around Tk20, whereas each crate costs around Tk6. If the amount doesn't reach more than Tk150, we mark them as 'un-serial'," Mizan said.
"It is not necessarily that a truck will entirely be serial. If it has sacks or crates that count up to less than Tk150 in some challans, it can also be considered as un-serial. We [the vanwala association he represents] maintain that list for our member drivers," he further explained.
Serial trucks earn the vanwalas more money. But none of these drivers are actually restricted by any specific rules, such as they can carry only serial products, or only non-serial products, or you have to stick to any particular group or association etc.
After talking to vanwalas from Chhapra potti, Wasa potti, Phol potti etc, we realised there are different sets of rules for what kind of crates are carried by which vanwalas, but they don't always play by the book.
As the night grows, these rules seem to magically disappear. However, one thing was clear: the younger the vanwala, the more money he earned given his able body and more agile mindset.
Another interesting thing that caught our attention was each van had a special build. For example, the vans that deliver to warehouses within Karwan Bazar don't have the drivers' seats [a mark that this van stays in Karwan Bazar], and they have double rings in the front wheel and double steel frames in the front.
The vans that deliver to other markets in the capital from Karwan Bazar, however, have driver seats, and double rings in both of the back wheels. Despite the differences in design, the main purpose of these vans' special build is to enable them to carry plenty of sacks and crates at a time.
After midnight, behind the Ittefaq side of Karwan Bazar, we met Jamal. He delivers produce from Karwan Bazar to other markets.
"Last night I took vegetables to Shyampur and Mirpur and earned Tk1,200," he told us, adding, "usually I can earn Tk1,000 to Tk1,200 per night. But tonight I have not gotten a job yet."
The restlessness
It was around 1:30am when we again met Jahangir's group in front of the Petrobangla building. They were still sitting idle as the trucks from Chuadanga were not here yet.
By this time, Masud was already on his fourth delivery of the night.
Jahangir, wrapped in warm clothes, was sitting alone and occasionally letting out a cough while the rest of his group was busy chitchatting.
Among them, a comparatively younger man who refused to reveal his name said, "I have other businesses. I do this only on days I don't have other work. So, it doesn't matter if the trucks don't arrive at all."
But Jahangir, like most others we talked to, doesn't have that luxury. This is the only job he has learned; this is what he has been doing most of his adult life. His children, two daughters and a schoolgoing son are his responsibility.
As the night grew longer, we couldn't delve into another conversation with him. He was restless, looking forward to the Chuadanga trucks. Most members of his group were becoming restless as well.
One of them, Sohel from Patuakhali said he was planning to return to his village and engage in farming because what he earns from pulling vans here was no longer enough.
"Everything is costly in Dhaka. They have increased house rent. And all other costs have increased. This income doesn't do me any good anymore," he said.
Meanwhile it was 2am and the fierce loading and unloading of vegetables and fruits in Karwan Bazar that intensified at 11pm had died down a bit.
The increasingly empty Karwan Bazar was now filled with the smell of raw produce. As the wind became colder, Jahangir's coughing intensified. But right then, as the light from the first of the trucks from Chuadanga shone on his narrow face, his wait appeared to be over.
