Mandaloji Rajendra Prabhu
Mandaloji Rajendra Prabhu
"He often said that he was sick and tired of it all"
The father of two and the carpenter Prabhu was found hanged in the room where he slept with his colleagues. Ten days later, a coffin with the body came home to the family. - He often told me that he was tired of everything. He had worked in Qatar for several years and every month there was a fight over the salary, says the 23-year-old wife. During one of the conversations just days before he was found dead, Sucharitha remembers that her husband said enough is enough. And he wanted to go home. - The company he worked for did not even offer condolences or paid any compensation, Sucharitha says.
Told to the journalistic platform Blankspot
On September 29, 2019 Mandaloji Sucharitha was up late, waiting for her husband to call. A tradition they’d had since he left the village in Telangana to become a migrant worker in Qatar three years prior. The phone never rang. The following morning a relative delivered the tragic news – her husband and father of their two children had taken his life.
Prabhu was found hanging in the crammed room where he slept with his coworkers.
“He often said that he was sick and tired of it all. He had worked as a carpenter in Qatar for several years and every month there were problems with the paychecks. He did not get the pay he was promised. He also complained about the long workdays, often more than 12 hours. He lived in a small room with fives,” his wife says in a Zoom call in June 2021.
Two daughters, 6 and 12, are listening to her talk. The oldest have helped her install Zoom.
Several other men from the village had gone to Qatar. Prabhu needed the income to support his family, parents and an old grandmother. His brother’s family needed help too.
“He only got half of what he was promised,” the widow says. “On paper his salary was $700 per month but he only got $350. Money was the only reason he went there.”
He managed to send home about $200 per month. When he complained about his pay, in 2018, the company agreed to give him a bonus, and he stayed on. He never received the bonus.After his death, Sucharitha moved in with her parents.
“We had to, I need my parents help in caring for my daughters, I am a seamstress and roll tobacco which brings in about $40 to $50 per month.”
Prabhu was last home in 2018, and he was only allowed vacation after pleading and arguing with his employer. Once home, he refused to go back if the conditions didn’t improve.
“He fought a lot with his bosses, about food and pay but also about living conditions and food quality. He recently switched jobs and hoped it would be better at his new work place, but he only made it there 50 days before he killed himself,” Sucharitha says.
During one of their last calls, Prabhu told her that he had had enough. He was coming back to India. Only three more months and he would be home. Tears trickle down her cheeks, when she speaks about her late husband.
“The company didn’t even send me condolences or offered any type of compensation,” she says. “Instead I got a hospital bill. How can I afford to pay that?”
Sucharitha’s predicament ended up with the migrant bureau in Hyderabad that paid the fees so her husband’s body could be returned to Muthyampet in the Jagtial district in Telangana.
In addition to being alone in making ends meet for her and the two children, Sucharitha has also come to realize that she is responsible to pay off the loan Prabhu took in order to get the job in Qatar. One loan, $335 is from 2016 and then another in 2019.
“The money was borrowed from a local loan company and I have to pay that back somehow,” she says.
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