Day: August 20, 2019

I am around 74 years old. I am working as a cobbler from 25-26 years. Prior to this, I used to be a farm labourer with the Jatt landlords and then I used to be a daily wage labourer. When I stopped doing the labour work. I learnt shoemaking from the village Balberha. There was this shoemaker of Jafarpur. After that I worked in my village, mending and making the shoes.

My childhood was like every other child. We were four brothers and three sisters. My elder brother is a police officer and the youngest is a farm labourer. The middle one passed away. All three sisters are elder to me. My father was very good at farm work. We did not have our own land, so he was a share-cropper earning one sixth of the produce.

I am 45 years old now. I passed the 10th grade in 1989 and started making horseshoes in 1990, I must be 15 or 16 years old then. In those days this profession was enough to pay the bills, I never felt the need to apply for an actual job.

I got married in 1975. That same year I went to Austria. There were a few of us who travelled by road at that time. Eventually, our visas expired after a year. We were expelled and forced to cross over to Yugoslavia. Fortunately, I had some money to travel back. I still wonder what would have happened if I had to stay back.