Jaipur: Spiralling food prices and lack of jobs for India's growing army of degree holders has pushed many young men into the labour market. Today across cities, trained teachers and double graduates can be found working as coolies.
At labour markets across the country, the number of people looking for work as daily wagers is rising with the heat in Jaipur, the situation is turning desperate.
"Spiralling food prices is one of the main reasons for this. After spending on food, there is no money left to buy school books, clothes, medicines and other necessities of life. That's why the numbers are growing," says Harikesh Bugalia, a trade union leader.
Increasingly, it's young boys on summer break from school, unemployed graduates and professionals, who are crowding the scene here.
When this reporter asked, "You have a MA degree, so what are you doing at this labour market?"
"I had no choice since I could not find a job. Today, the cost of living is so high that if I have to support my family, I have to work as a labourer," says the Masters Degree holder.
"I have an Arts Degree. I load and unload cartons of medicines," says another, who holds a Graduate Degree.
With a worsening drought situation and food prices expected to remain high till the monsoon, every extra hand counts. Fifteen days of hard labour earns these men up to Rs 4000, more than a primary school teacher's salary or a salesman in a shop. So, many graduates throng these markets in times of crisis, even if it makes them uneasy.
"I feel ashamed. Most people who come here hide the fact that they are educated," says one of the educated labourers.
While NREGA continues to provide some relief to the rural poor specially women, the urban jobless have nothing to fall back on, least of all their degrees.