{"id":25067,"date":"2025-03-15T19:23:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T19:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tamil-nadu-teens-capture-indias-labourers-in-pictures\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T19:23:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T19:23:45","slug":"tamil-nadu-teens-capture-indias-labourers-in-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/tamil-nadu-teens-capture-indias-labourers-in-pictures\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamil Nadu teens capture India’s labourers in pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Nandhini Vellaisamy<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Tamil<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"SheikSheik Hasan K<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The students captured labourers at work, including a woman working in a turmeric factory<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The elderly woman gazes wistfully into the distance, her hands curled over a basket of tobacco, surrounded by the hundreds of cigarettes she has spent hours rolling by hand.<\/p>\n

The photograph is one of several snapped by student Rashmitha T in her village in Tamil Nadu, featuring her neighbours who make traditional Indian cigarettes called beedis.<\/p>\n

“No-one knows about their work. Their untold stories need to be told,” Rashmitha told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Her pictures were featured in a recent exhibition about India’s labourers titled The Unseen Perspective at the Egmore Museum in Chennai.<\/p>\n

All the photographs were taken by 40 students from Tamil Nadu’s government-run schools, who documented the lives of their own parents or other adults.<\/p>\n

From quarry workers to weavers, welders to tailors, the pictures highlight the diverse, backbreaking work undertaken by the estimated 400 million labourers in India.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"RashmithaRashmitha T<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rashmitha snapped this picture of her neighbour rolling beedis<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Many beedi rollers, for instance, are vulnerable to lung damage and tuberculosis due to their dangerous work, said Rashmitha.<\/p>\n

“Their homes reek of tobacco, you cannot stay there long,” she said, adding that her neighbours sit outside their homes for hours rolling beedis.<\/p>\n

For every 1,000 cigarettes they roll, they only earn 250 rupees ($2.90; \u00a32.20), she told the BBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"JayarajJayaraj S<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Pazhaniammal often complains of body aches after working for hours at the brick kiln<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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In the state’s Erode district, Jayaraj S captured a photo of his mother Pazhaniammal at work as a brick maker. She is seen pouring a clay and sand mixture into moulds and shaping bricks by hand.<\/p>\n

Jayaraj had to wake up at 2am to snap the picture, because his mother begins working in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

“She has to start early to avoid the afternoon sun,” he said.<\/p>\n

It was only when he embarked on his photography project that he truly realised the hardships she has to endure, he added.<\/p>\n

“My mother frequently complains of headaches, leg pain, hip pain and sometimes faints,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GopikaGopika Lakshmi\u00a0M<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Despite being on dialysis, Gopika Lakshmi’s father continues to sell groceries from his vehicle.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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In the Madurai district, Gopika Lakshmi M captured her father Muthukrishnan selling goods from an old van.<\/p>\n

Her father has to get a dialysis twice a week after he lost a kidney two years ago.<\/p>\n

“He drives to nearby villages to sell goods despite being on dialysis,” Lakshmi says.<\/p>\n

“We don’t have the luxury of resting at home.”<\/p>\n

But despite his serious condition, her father “looked like a hero” as he carried on with his gruelling daily routine, said Gopika.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"KeerthiKeerthi S<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Keerthi captured the daily struggles of her mother, who is the family’s sole earner<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Taking pictures with a professional camera was not easy initially, but it got easier after months of training with experts, said the students.<\/p>\n

“I learned how to shoot at night, adjust shutter speed and aperture,” said Keerthi, who lives in the Tenkasi district.<\/p>\n

For her project, Keerthi chose to document the daily life of her mother, Muthulakshmi, who owns a small shop in front of their house.<\/p>\n

“Dad is not well, so mum looks after both the shop and the house,” she said. “She wakes up at 4am and works until 11pm.”<\/p>\n

Her photos depict her mother’s struggles as she travels long distances via public buses to source goods for her store.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to show through photographs what a woman does to improve her children’s lives,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MukeshMukesh K<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mukesh spent four days documenting his father’s work at the quarry<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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\"MukeshMukesh K<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The workers live at the quarry most of the week<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mukesh K spent four days with his father, documenting his work at a quarry.<\/p>\n

“My father stays here and comes home only once a week,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mukesh’s father works from 3am till noon, and after a brief rest, works from 3pm to 7pm. He earns a meagre sum of about 500 rupees a day.<\/b><\/p>\n

“There are no beds or mattresses in their room. My father sleeps on empty cardboard boxes in the quarry,” he said. “He suffered a sunstroke last year because he was working under the hot sun.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GovarthananGovarthanan L S<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The students also captured cooks at work…<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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\"SaranSaran R<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

…as well as cobblers fixing sandals.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The students, aged 13 to 17, are learning various art forms, including photography, as part of an initiative by the Tamil Nadu School education department.<\/p>\n

“The idea is to make students socially responsible,” said Muthamizh Kalaivizhi, state lead of Holistic Development programme in Tamil Nadu’s government schools and founder of non-government organisation Neelam Foundation.<\/p>\n

“They documented the working people around them. Understanding their lives is the beginning of social change,” he added.<\/p>\n

Follow BBC News India on <\/i>Instagram<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>YouTube,<\/i><\/a> <\/i>X<\/i><\/a> and <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n