Hard at work – Vignettes from villages
They tug, they slog, they literally bear the weight of the system. This Labour Day, let’s recognise the struggles of workers who resisted oppression a century ago, and who toil daily to make ends meet and make this country function.
In a village in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, a worker stirs hot sugarcane juice in a shallow vessel so that the jaggery melts in our mouth (Photo by Kausik Paul)
A mother carries her baby in her lap while collecting red chillies in Hooghly, West Bengal (Photo by Surit Datta)
An old man cuts mortises into a wooden log with a mallet and a chisel (Photo by Chirantan Sarkar)
Workers in Habra, West Bengal, stretch and pull the golden paddy in thin layers to sun-dry the grains (Photo by Dibakar Roy)
Women carry huge bundles of wheat from farms in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra (Photo by Viraj Patwardhan)
Women farmers working in rice fields in Odisha (Photo by Anshuman Mohanty)
Children work in a brick-making unit in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh(Photo by Harshit Mishra)
A man sips tea in Ganjam, Odisha to get ready for the upcoming challenges of the day (Photo by Ruturaj Mahapatra)
The lead image at the top shows workers working at Kumortuli, preparing for Durga puja (Photo by Gourab Mondal)