"Why should I be unhappy? I earn Rs 450 a day. I have no expenses, except for an occasional tea in the evening. By the end of this month, I will be sending home Rs 70,000", he says tearing into the onion as he has his lunch.He and seven of his friends stay next to the work site, in a makeshift tent. Here they cook, wash, bathe and listen to music. And when they are not working, Mante and friends can be seen roaming about in the city."They have it pretty good here. I have supervised work in many construction sites. The migrant workers here go home like the Malayali comes from the Gulf. They will be laden with things like TV, fridge and household utensils while they visit their village," says Philip."We are happy here. I enjoy the rice and fish curry. We love the bonda. Eating bonda and drinking tea is what we enjoy most," says Krishna who too is from Jaipalgudy.After a yearas work, most of the migrant workers like to return to their native places. The money they earn here in a year is apparently enough to buy one-two acres of land in their state.Krishna, however, has other ideas. He dreams of marrying a Malayali girl. asI like Kerala girls. I have told my folks back home about this. They have given me the go ahead. If everything goes well, I hope to get married to a Malayali around this time next year,a? he said with a shy smile.As per police records, there are 528 migrant workers like Mante and Krishna staying in the West police station limits. Most of them are from West Bengal, Orissa or Assam. There are hundreds of others outside town limits, working mostly in small scale industries. Every Sunday, they can be seen in and around the Nagampadam bus stand, meeting friends and making acquaintances."They are a peaceful lot. We, however, keep a watch over them, and maintain details of them in the concerned police stations. But since they move around a lot, switching jobs randomly, we cannot say we have an exact data on them," Kottayam special branch DySP M J Mathew said.
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