Uganta Umarwal’s story is somewhat similar. She was born into a family of manual scavengers and took up the work at the age of 10. “I was born an untouchable, and I started scavenging at 10,” she says. “I would collect human waste from dry latrines in a basket and walk three kilometres to dump it in the woods for Rs 300 a month. It was dirty work, and the smell of waste would drive me mad. I often woke up in the middle of the night screaming, covered in sweat, feeling numb and afraid. When I refused to do the work, my mother beat me. When I got married, my husband was unemployed, alcoholic and abusive. So I eventually got on a bus with my daughters, returned to my parents, and resumed scavenging.”