Tamil inflamed teenagers capture India's workers in photos

The elderly woman looks wisely in the distance, her hands twisted over a basket of tobacco, surrounded by hundreds of cigarettes she spent hours in her hand.

The photo is one of the few clustered students Rashmita T in her village in Tamil Nada, with the participation of their neighbors who make traditional Indian cigarettes called Beedis.

“Nobody knows about their work. Their stories need to be told,” Rashmita told the BBC.

Her photos were presented in a recent exhibition for workers in India, entitled “The Unseen Perspective” at the Egmore Museum in Chennai.

All photos are taken by 40 students from Tamil Nada Government Schools who document the lives of their own parents or other adults.

From career workers to weavers, welders to tailors, the photos emphasize the varied, reverse work taken by approximate 400 million workers in India.

Many Beedi rollers, for example, are vulnerable to lung damage and tuberculosis due to their dangerous work, Rashmita said.

“Their homes are stopped by tobacco, you can't stay there long,” she said, adding that her neighbors are sitting outside their homes for hours of Rolling Beedis.

For every 1,000 rolled cigarettes, they only earn 250 rupees ($ 2.90; £ 2,20), she told the BBC.

In the area of ​​Erode, Jayaraj S filmed a photo of his mother Padhanamal at work as a brick manufacturer. You can see a mixture of clay and sand into shapes and shaping bricks by hand.

Jayaraj had to wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning to click the photo because his mother was starting to work in the middle of the night.

“It has to start early to avoid the afternoon sun,” he said.

Only when he embarked on his photographic project, he really realized the difficulties he had to endure, he added.

“My mother often complains of headache, leg pain, hip pain and sometimes faint,” he said.

In the Madurai neighborhood, Gopika Lakshmi M sews his father Mutuharnaan, selling goods from an old van.

Her father should receive dialysis twice a week after he lost a kidney two years ago.

“He drives to nearby villages to sell goods, although he is dialysis,” Lakshmi says.

“We don't have the luxury of resting at home.”

But despite her serious condition, her father “looked like a hero” while continuing with his exhausting daily routine, Gopica said.

Shooting with a professional camera was not easy initial, but it was easier after months of training with experts, the students said.

“I learned how to shoot at night, adjust the prison speed and aperture,” said Kierti, who lives in the Tenkassi area.

For his project, Kierti chose to document the daily life of his mother Mutulakshmi, who owns a small shop in front of her house.

“Dad is not good, so Mom takes care of both the store and the house,” she said. “She wakes up at 4 o'clock in the morning and works until 23:00.”

Her photos depict the struggles of her mother as she travels long distances through public buses to deplete goods for her store.

“I wanted to show through pictures what a woman is doing to improve the lives of her children,” she said.

Mukesh K spent four days with his father, documenting his career work.

“My father stays here and goes home only once a week,” he said.

Mukesh's father worked from 3am until noon and after a short break he worked from 3:00 pm to 19:00. He earns a scanty sum of About 500 rupees a day.

“There are no beds or mattresses in their room. My father sleeps on empty cardboard boxes in their careers,” he said. “He suffered a sunny blow last year because he worked under the hot sun.”

Students, aged 13 to 17, study various forms of art, including photography as part of the Tamil Nada School Department initiative.

“The idea is to make students socially responsible,” says Mutamiz Kalayviji, a state leading holistic development program at Tamil Nada Government Schools and founder of the Neelam Neelam Foundation.

“They documented working people around them. Understanding their lives is the beginning of social changes,” he added.

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