Workers coming back from the Ganderpara tea garden. Workers of some of the newly closed tea gardens get picked up and dropped off at nearby facilities, where they can work as day laborers. © Ashutosh Shaktan
A drunk tea worker in the Bandapani tea garden. After the closure of the local tea garden, alcoholism increased manyfold in the area, leading to many deaths. Unable to buy alcohol from the market, workers drink a cheap and locally brewed alcohol called "Hadiya." © Ashutosh Shaktan
Melancholia. The closing of the local tea garden led to a feeling of hopelessness in the whole area. It feels that the whole ecosystem is dying. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Birpara is the nearest town. After the closure of tea garden, the significance of this market has risen significantly. Most of the workers have started visiting the market daily in order to look for odd jobs and to commute to other towns for work. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Shekhar Munda shows a passport-sized photo of his daughter Rena Munda. She left for the city of Bangalore six years back and never came back. Girls from the area are easy prey to traffickers. The traffickers lure young girls with the promise of better jobs and then take them to cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, selling them to red light districts or to serve as maids. According to an organization fighting human trafficking in the area, only two out of ten cases are reported. © Ashutosh Shaktan
The levels of malnutrition in the abandoned tea gardens has long ago crossed into an alarming situation. According to a survey done by a local NGO, the body mass index of tea workers is reaching dangerously low levels in former tea estates. The WHO has stipulated that anything less than 18.5 BMI constitutes famine-effected population—the number here is down to 14. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Birang Munda and Minjo Munda (in the background) outside their single room house in the South Line ward of Bandapani. Birang Munda is an alcoholic and sells the rice she gets from a local charity scheme to buy alcohol. This leaves her other sister to starve. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Arvind Rai's dead body. He suffered from a nervous breakdown. Deaths have became so frequent in the village that funerals are an every day part of the people's lives now. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Ramesh Minj asks the villagers to register for ration cards and informs them about the founding of a co-operative society that will run the tea garden. He also helps students to seek different scholarships to support their education. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Charitable schemes like Indira Awas Yojana and NREGS are helping this area survive in these challenging conditions. More than 80 people have already benefitted from the efforts of Indira Awas Yojana alone and many others are enrolled in NREGS, earning their daily wages. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Birsa Oraon sits in his house with swollen face and eyes. He is waiting for his son to come but meanwhile he suffers from severe malnutrition and unknown diseases. The only medicine in his house is "cofdex," a basic cough syrup. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Kancchi Rai lives alone. She has been declared dead in the government records, making her ineligible for various government schemes. She broke down saying, "Here, even the living people can't expect any help—so how can someone like me, who has been declared dead already, expect anything?" © Ashutosh Shaktan
The horrifying face of starvation in the abandoned tea gardens. Ramu Munda died on August 18, 2015 and was cremated in the Bandapani tea garden. According to another worker, Ramesh Minj, this place is suffers a slow death with every passing worker. © Ashutosh Shaktan
With the closure of the local tea garden, some workers have resorted to odd jobs like collecting stones (dolomite) and wood. After toiling hard, they manage to make 50-100 rupees a day. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Bimal (21) and Shakti (19) have dropped out of school to work in the river, collecting stones (dolomite). They had to leave school and make money to help their families. After the closure of the local tea garden, the dropout rate in nearby schools and colleges increased drastically. © Ashutosh Shaktan
The unemployed workers of closed tea gardens often work as stone collectors now. Here, they are loading a truck with dolomite found somewhere near the Indo-Bhutan border. © Ashutosh Shaktan
A woman walks away from the heap of stones she just finished collecting. In stones, she has found a small measure of salvation. © Ashutosh Shaktan
A tea plantation worker cutting the branches off a tree. Collecting and selling wood has become one of their main sources of income now that the plantation is closed. © Ashutosh Shaktan
People carrying wood collected from the nearby forest in Bandapani to sell in the Birpara market. During the rains, all the dried up rivers in the area come to life. Thanks to the flash floods, every heavy rainfall makes it almost impossible to cross the river. In some cases, people have to wait for days before the water level comes down. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Workers burn bicycle tires to chase away an elephant from their village. Most of these tea plantations are located in the "Human-Elephant Conflict" zones which are frequently raided by elephants. Every year, 5-10 lives are lost due to these elephant attacks. © Ashutosh Shaktan
A boy reacts to spotting an elephant in his village. Elephant raids are a part of their lives here. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Satya Tirkey holds my Ipad while Sujal Ekka toggles through the different menus on the screen. They are using an Ipad for the first time. Bandapani got electricity in 2013. Before that, only the tea factory and the management bungalows were provided with electricity. Even the schoolchildren from the village had to study under home-made kerosene lamps in their houses. © Ashutosh Shaktan
Somari Kharia is mentally challenged. She was raped multiple times during the period when she was trafficked to Delhi. Now she lives alone in Bandpani. Her face shows a kind of numbness that still haunts me. © Ashutosh Shaktan
