The widow forced to carry luggage for a living: Maya, the only female porter in Ludhiana, carries bags for a few rupees to pay for her son, 12

• Punjab’s first woman railway porter forced to work after losing her husband
• Maya, 40, says she must work to give her son an education
  

By James Black

Published: 11:39 EDT, 28 December 2012 | Updated: 18:03 EDT, 29 December 2012

Hauling heavy luggage through rush hour crowds for eight hours a day was never Maya Devi’s idea of a career. Following the sudden and tragic death of her husband however, she had no choice.

Maya, 40, lost her  husband, Ram Kumar, a licensed railway porter at the Ludhiana railway station, in April this year. Her world has never been the same since.

‘Perhaps this is my destiny that I have to start afresh from where my husband Ram Kumar left,’ she said stoically.

Maya, 40,is the only female porter in her city

Hard physical work like this is not what Maya had envisioned for herself

Porters must pass strenuous physical tests before being given a license

Maya was married to Ram Kumar in Redau village in Sonepat district of Haryana 13 years ago, and they were living since then in a house that Ram Kumar owned near the Jagraon bridge. The couple has a son, Guarav, who is 12-years-old.

‘In March 2012 misfortune struck our family. My husband fell ill and died in April.

‘The initial shock of my husband’s death shattered my world.

‘But then I gathered myself and decided to carry on with the life, not for myself but for the sake of my son for whom my husband had nursed many dreams,’ she said.

Maya wants her son to study hard and achieve great things. If doing hard physical work, and long hours, on Ludhiana’s bustling platforms means that her son is able to build himself a future for himself, then all the suffering of the last six months will not have been in vain.

Maya is pictured here with one of her many hundreds of customers at the station

Some women apply for jobs on the station’s platform but Maya is the only one to have accepted employment at Ludhiana

Maya is determined to keep working to give her son an education

‘I have no idea as to what fate holds for me, but if I can get my son educated and make him stand on his feet, I shall have the satisfaction of being a good mother and also having fulfilled the wishes of my husband,’ she said.

Though Maya only started working as a porter in November, any initial apprehensions she may have had in approaching passengers alighting from trains has now changed into a visible sense of confidence.

There is no doubt, however, that the sight of a woman carrying heavy baggage remains a strange one to regular passengers.

Being a luggage porter is not an easy job to get. it requires a vigorous physical test in order to get an official license.

Senior divisional commercial manager MM Singh said there was no gender bias for recruitment of women as porters.

For whatever reason, however, women as a rule do not come forward for jobs.

‘During fitness tests conducted at several major railway stations a couple of months ago for recruitment of licensed porters, quite a few women had appeared and some of them had cleared the fitness test. But none of them appeared at the time of the final recruitment,’ he said.

Mr Singh said there was no practice of giving the jobs to family members on compassionate ground after the death of a porter.

Maya would have had to pass the same tests and recruitment procedures as everyone else.

‘The railway officials must have done the same to recruit Maya in place of her husband,’ Mr Singh added.

A travel expert has revealed whether 20L, 30L and 40L cabin bags will be cleared to be taken on board Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet flights.

Chelsea Dickenson, founder of cheapholidayexpert.com, asked ‘does it fit?’ for the three carry-on bag types when flying with the popular budget airlines, with viral Tiktok videos, presented in three parts, showing whether they could be squeezed into the carriers’ dreaded baggage sizers.

After some pulling, prodding, and stuffing into the airline bag sizers, Chelsea emerges with the final verdicts on each bag, revealing whether they’re ‘truly worth the hype or could potentially lead you to face a hefty fine at the airport’.

Travel expert Chelsea Dickenson has revealed whether 20L, 30L and 40L cabin bags will be cleared to be taken on board Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet flights. Chelsea is discovering here that a 30L bag fits into the easyJet sizer

The carry-on bags that Chelsea tested were: the 20L Narwey Duffle – so popular for Ryanair flights that it has become known as the ‘Viral Ryanair Cabin Bag’; the 30L Kono Carry On Backpack; and the 40L Mountain Warehouse 40L Cargo Bag.

Chelsea discovered that the ‘Ryanair’ Narwey bag ‘did indeed fit into the easyJet, Ryanair, and Wizz Air baggage sizer, with some extra room left on the sides when put into the easyJet sizer’.

You can see the TikTok video of this part of the experiment here.

Chelsea discovering that a 40L bag doesn’t fit into Wizz Air’s baggage sizer

The 30L was ‘harder to squeeze in’, says Chelsea, but she managed to make it fit into all of the baggage sizers – though she noted that ‘it did protrude slightly for Ryanair’, highlighting that ‘some gate staff may not allow [this]’.

You can see the TikTok video for this part of the experiment here.

Finally, the 40L was a ‘no go’ for both Ryanair and Wizz Air, but Chelsea ‘was surprised to find it did – after much pushing and prodding – fit in the easyJet baggage sizer’. You can see the TikTok video for this part of the experiment here.

The 20L ‘Viral Ryanair Cabin Bag’ slotted into the Ryanair sizer with ease

Chelsea added: ‘Savvy travellers have long sought ways to outwit budget airlines and evade their exorbitant hand luggage fees. 

‘Fortunately, every passenger is entitled to bring one small cabin bag for free, meaning there are a bunch of bags out there claiming to meet those size requirements set by low-cost airlines.’

After watching her videos, some of Chelsea’s social media followers commented with baggage-sizer stories.

User ‘thegirlwiththehoptattoo’ wrote: ‘My friend and I were on a very early morning layover in Madrid airport and had a most enjoyable half an hour watching Ryanair staff try and unjam a suitcase from their size cage. 

‘They’d insisted on all cases being measured and the passenger had shoved theirs in, but it wouldn’t come out. Comedy gold.’

User amberrosemcg, meanwhile, revealed: ‘My bag fitted in the easyJet small size, but because it was “forced in” I had to pay.’

Benefits: Bottling boss Zoran Bogdanovic took home millions last year

The boss of Coca-Cola HBC has pocketed more than £500,000 in ‘cost of living’ benefits in the last two years.

Zoran Bogdanovic, chief executive of the soft drinks bottling giant, received the payments as part of an overall salary, bonus and perks package adding up to a staggering £8million over the two years.

The astonishing figures from the Mail on Sunday, the sister title of This is Money, highlight the lavish handouts received by the very well paid bosses of some of Britain’s biggest companies.

These perks include generous allowances for their partners, commuting costs and designer clothes. Other benefits include subsidised housing, club memberships and home security costs.

Bogdanovic was paid £4.1million last year, including almost £400,000 in benefits. He picked up a ‘cost of living and foreign exchange rate adjustment’ of £285,000 and a housing allowance of £91,000. He also received a ‘home trip allowance’ of £2,240 and a ‘partner allowance’ of £860.

Shareholders recently railed against Bogdanovic’s pay package. In one of the biggest protests against executive excess this year, almost a third of them voted against the company’s pay report.

However, such votes are not binding and boards can simply thumb their noses at investors.

Although the company’s shares are quoted in London, Bogdanovic, a Croatian national, is based at Coca-Cola HBC’s headquarters in Zug, the upscale hedge fund capital of Switzerland where living costs are considerably higher than in his homeland.

HBC – whose partner the Coca-Cola Company features singer Rita Ora in a recent advertising campaign – declined to comment.

Bogdanovic’s pay package concerns UK small investors and pension savers because as a member of the elite FTSE 100 index, Coca-Cola HBC shares are automatically included in popular index tracker funds.

Share performance has lagged the index since Coca-Cola HBC joined the main London stock market in 2013.

As ordinary employees were forced to pay more for their daily commutes, a number of FTSE 100 bosses received tens of thousands of pounds to be chauffeured to their offices. Fresnillo boss Octavio Alvidrez received £38,000 last year for his driver.

Other executives to enjoy the perks of the top job include new Burberry boss Jonathan Akeroyd, who raked in £4.3million last year, including the maximum £50,000 allowed for a car and designer clothing.

Lavish: Pop star Rita Ora stars in Coca-Cola’s latest advertising campaign

Jack Bowles, head of British American Tobacco, enjoyed a £1.3million payday including £33,000 in costs for the ‘annual maintenance and monitoring’ of his personal and home security system. He also received £39,000 for a chauffeur.

National Grid’s John Pettigrew has the use of a car and driver – a perk that cost the energy giant £43,500 – and he also received a £12,000 company car allowance.

Pettigrew’s £7.3 million package puts him among the highest-paid FTSE 100 bosses. He previously claimed half a million pounds to move from Leamington Spa to London in 2019.

Luis Gallego, who heads British Airways owner IAG, was paid a £250,000 a year ‘transitionary allowance’ for keeping homes in Madrid and London.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy received £102,000 to commute from his family home in Ireland to the firm’s HQ in Hertfordshire.