An ode to city workers ona subdued Labour Day

On International Workers' Day, an occasion that passed without much commemoration in a city largely built by industrial workers, a diverse group of people - poets, businessmen, a lawyer and workers met at Madanpura in Central Mumbai to acknowledge the millions of hands toiling in the city's workshops, factories and vast construction sites.

It is not odd to see Madanpura as the venue for a 'Yaum e Mazdoor' or 'Labour Day' function. The area has been a hub for small industries for over a century. Advocate Zubair Azmi, who also leads a cultural group called Urdu Markaz, said, "Right from handlooms in the 1930s and 1940s to power looms, buff polishing, then then injection molding, and now bags and ladies' purse manufacturing, the area has hosted various industries." Azmi's father left Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh to work in a handloom factory in Madanpura and then went on to become an entrepreneur.