Tamil Nadu teenagers take Indian workers in the pictures

The elderly woman stares sadly at the distance, claims her hands on a basket of tobacco, surrounded by hundreds of cigarettes that she spent hours in the hand rolling.

The picture is one of the many student Rashmitha t in her village in Tamil Nadu, which includes her neighbors who make traditional Indian cigarettes called Beedis.

“Nobody knows about their work.” You should tell their indescribable stories, “Rashmatha told BBC.

Her photos appeared in a recent exhibition about Indian workers entitled “The Perspective of the Unseen” at the Ighamor Museum in Chennai.

All photographs were taken by 40 students from the government -run schools in Tamil Nadu, which documented the lives of their parents or other adults.

From quarry workers to weavers, welding to tailors, pictures highlight the various and backward works by an estimated 400 million workers in India.

Dishtha said that many Beedi rollers, for example, are subject to lung and tuberculosis damage because of its dangerous work.

“Their homes are from tobacco, you cannot stay there for a long time,” she said, adding that her neighbors are sitting outside their homes for the trading hours.

The British Broadcasting Corporation said: For every 1,000 cigarettes revolving around, it only earns 250 rupees ($ 2.90; 2.20 pounds).

In the Trioid area of ​​the state, Jayraj took a photo of his mother Bazaniamal at work as a brick maker. It was seen flowing on a mixture of clay and sand in the molds and the formation of bricks by hand.

Jayraj had to wake up at 2 am to take the photo, because his mother begins working in the middle of the night.

“She must start early to avoid in the afternoon,” he said.

He added that it was only when he started his photography project, he really realized the difficulties he had to bear.

“My mother complains a lot of headaches, leg pain, hip pain, and sometimes disappear,” he said.

In the Madorai area, Jobica Lakshmi seized her father, Methokrichnan, to sell goods from an old car.

Her father must get dialysis twice a week after losing two years ago.

“He is driving his car to the nearby villages to sell goods despite being dialysis,” Lakshmi says.

“We do not have the luxury of comfort at home.”

But despite his serious condition, her father “seemed to be a hero” as he continued with his hard daily routine.

The students said that taking pictures using a professional camera was not easy at first, but it became easier after months of training with experts.

“I learned how to shoot at night, adjust the speed of shutter and a opening,” said Kirthy, who lives in the Tenkasi region.

For her project, Kirthi chose to document her mother’s daily life, MuthulaKshmi, who has a small store in front of their home.

She said: “My father is not fine, so my mother takes care of the store and the house.” “You wake up at 4 am and work until 11 pm.”

Her photos depict her mother’s struggles, traveling long distances through public buses for the source of goods for her store.

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

Mukesh K spent four days with his father, documenting his work in a quarry.

“My father stays here and returns to the house only once a week,” he said.

Mukish’s father works from 3 in the morning until noon, and after a short installment, he works from 3 pm to 7 pm. He earns a small amount of About 500 rupees per day.

“There is no family or ranks in their room. My father sleeps on empty cardboard boxes in the quarry,” he said. “He suffered from a sunstroke last year because he was working in the burning sun.”

Students, between the ages of 13 and 17, learn different artistic forms, including photography, as part of the school education department initiative in Tamil Nadu.

“The idea is to make students socially officials,” said Metmamiz Calvshey, the state’s cold in government schools in Tamille public schools and the founder of Niham NGO.

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

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