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Rourkela, April 28: While people opt for several professions for a living, Raju Turi (70) has been making his ends meet by providing readymade kokeis (a local term for biers made of bamboo) to his customers for the last 45 years.
Having provided the equipment for thousands of dead persons till now, Raju has no regret over choosing this profession. Rather, he says that people who come to purchase the biers encourage him to carry on.
“Death is the only truth. I make this for the deceased and some day my family would use this to carry me up to the crematorium. I would continue to make kokeis till my last breath,” Raju says with a philosophical overtone.
Hailing from Banka district of Bihar, Raju runs this business near Deepak Cinema Hall in Sector V of the Steel City. He stays with his wife, two sons and a daughter near a slum and manages his family with whatever he earns from the business.
Raju’s sons are earning for themselves and settled with their families. His only daughter has also got married. However, despite becoming a grandfather himself, Raju is yet to hang up his boots and neither his wife nor his son’s wives tries to stop him from going ahead with the business.
Raju came to Rourkela with his relatives in 1960 to work in the steel plant but failed to get a job. After roaming around in the city for about a decade, he started making wooden beds from a temporary workshop near Deepak Cinema in 1970. At that time people used to carry the bodies of their relatives to the crematorium on a charpoy.
Cashing on the needs of the locals, Raju gave up bed-making and started making charpoys for the pall-bearers. Then he used to get `10 for a charpoy.
The demand for his charpoy was so high that not only from Rourkela, he started getting orders from areas like Biramitrapur, Kuanrmunda, Fertilizer, Bandhamunda and even some parts of Jharkhand.
With the shortage of wood later, the charpoys became little costlier for customers. Raju then started making kokeis from bamboos.
Fifteen years ago, he used to sell a piece of the bier at `25 to `30 but now it fetches him `300 for a unit.
“Until now I have sold more than 25,000 kokeis,” Raju said, adding that he never demands a rupee more from anyone irrespective of the financial status of the customer.
“I have even provided the bier free of cost to many poor persons on several occasions,” he says with pride emanating from his face.
Raju fractured one of his legs four years ago but didn’t stop making the biers. He always makes sure that none of his customers, even those who visit him in odd hours, return empty handed.
“I get satisfaction with this work and people’s behaviour gives me the required boost
to carry on even at this age,” Raju says.
