Welcome to a ride through the gutters

I am used to returning home late - not necessarily from office. But for some quirky reason or the other, I don't see them during other (and for me, more tolerable) seasons. It's only during the nerve-numbing Beijing cold that I see them huddled in circles on bustling-by-day streets that turn ghostly at night. The idea of working in the open during those deathly cold hours sends the iciest shudder up my spine even in the comfort of a well-heated taxi.

There is always a buzz around them: a truck fitted with a giant contraption pumping or sucking in air or water, sewage being dumped onto another vehicle, a curb-cleaning behemoth on countless wheels standing still. The cacophony of instructions adds a somewhat musical note to the eeriness of the scene.

It is only when you get close that you realize a manhole is open and either someone is already down in the dark recesses of a giant sewer or is about to do so. These are men who defy the weather gods to keep our sewerage running. They clean the sewers so that we can go on dumping as much fluid waste as possible. They act as safety valves that release (and inhale) toxic gases so that the sewers don't explode and we can let as much toxic chemicals as possible flow into our drains at home, office and factory.