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 visit the trader several times to get it. In case the farmer urgently needed some money, the trader would pay him that amount as loan out of the money that was due to that farmer and the farmer would have to pay interest on that money taken as loan! Of course one cannot generalize; all traders were not so cruel and some were in fact quite kind as well. Tobacco traders had their own storehouses called wakhar. It was there that the tobacco was collected, graded, packed, stored and then dispatched. Usually women worked there. The work of processing tobacco to make jarda was also done by them. The working conditions were terrible. These wakhars were cramped, unclean and without much ventilation. There was the compulsion of sitting in the same place for many hours at a stretch. The strong smell of tobacco filled the atmosphere. It was common to have a layer of tobacco dust covering your entire body at the end of the day. Even the toilet facilities were seldom provided. All this drudgery yielded a very meager wage. Yet no one dared complain. In Nipani and surrounding area there were about fifteen to twenty thousand women workers working in tobacco wakhars like this. Additionally, many worked in the bidi-making factories. Bidimaking and tobacco trading were allied businesses and many traders were involved in both. Subhash Joshi was one of the main persons who worked for the improvement in these abject working conditions. He was a professor by profession; a quiet and thoughtful person who genuinely cared for the downtrodden. His wife, Sunitaakka, fully supported him in his work. He did all his social work from home which meant there was a continuous flow of visitors to his house. Often Sunitaakka had to cook for twenty persons but did all that with a cheerful face. He started to organize women workers from bidi industry, which he realized was one of the most exploited section of society. He used to invite leading social workers and writers 138

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage