Before when I was little — I was about 12 or 13 — my father took a contract on some orange groves.

He worked as a contractor.

He and a friend did it.

Then I really wanted to go — I wanted to go to Sikkim.

I was only thirteen.

I went — I ran away and went. My father didn't let me go.

He had set out two or three days before.

So I ran off after him and followed along.

We carried oranges — they only gave us two rupees per hundred, for the Namphak ones.

That was all they gave us for the Namphak ones.

They gave us three rupees per hundred for the Mangjing ones.

But from up there — how it was to get three rupees per hundred —

First in the morning, when it was still a bit dark, one had to go and pick oranges all day and make basket-loads and bring them halfway back down and sleep there.

Then in the morning you had to set out and go down to Singtam and dump them off.

I couldn't carry a lot.

I'd carry five hundred or so — sometimes 450, sometimes five hundred.

Delivering them from there sometimes I'd get six or seven rupees.

With that I'd buy rice — then rice was cheap — it was 1.25 a seer (900g)— I'd buy two seer.

We bought it and we bought meat.

We brought it up and stayed in our quarters.

At night, the paddy-dancers paddy danced — a lot.

The singers sang.

Those who just sat around sat around.

We had to stay until midnight.

They paddy-danced.

And they slept.

Then in the morning, when it was still night they got up and went to pick oranges.

They went up and picked and carried oranges, and again they stayed over halfway back.

We worked like that.

Then later my father came.

I ran off and couldn't carry oranges any more.

I went up, and up above Singtam someone called Meribung Maila from our village had taken a subcontract for digging a road.

He'd taken the subcontract, and later I got into road-digging there.

I stayed at it and later my father came back over here — back home.

I stayed a year.

We worked and worked, and finished digging the road.

We finished, and when it was time to get paid — we'd worked and built retaining walls, and what that subcontractor had built — what we had built — it collapsed.

It came down with a crash.

So they immediately stopped the money.

They stopped it and didn't give it to us.

Then we laborers started beating up that subcontractor Meribunge Maila.

"Give us the money for our work!

We won't work any more," we said.

Then he told the contractor that there was shouting and screaming, and they gave us half of our pay.

That was all they gave us, and we went back to work.

Two months' salary was owed us.

We did the work.

The wall — over there they say "dewal" —

here in our place — in Nepal — we say "lungdhakke" but in the language over there they say "dewal".

They finished the wall — we finished building it.

Then they paid us in full.

They paid us and we went on further.

We went to a place called ?Martam Road.

We stayed at Martam Road.

Over there there was a kami [blacksmith] contractor.

We latched on to him and worked.

We stayed all monsoon long.

We stayed on, and later, with a clerk — there was a Rai clerk.

We quarreled with that Rai.

He told me, "You don't work properly."

"How can you say I don't work properly!

I'm working harder than the others.

Why do you scold me? I'm working like this — why do you scold me?" I said. [break in recording]

That clerk scolded us — he scolded me, even though we worked, he just kept scolding us.

He just kept scolding us.

So we talked it over, me and a friend.

"OK, let's beat that clerk up!

Let's beat him up — we'll forget our salary, let's just forget about it and leave!

Let's go work somewhere else instead!" we said, me and my friend.

Then my friend said, "No, we'll put up with it for a day or two. Because if one gets angry one only eats shit later."

So I bore with it.

Then six or seven days afterwards we quarreled again with that clerk.

Then I told him — I told my friend — [??]