Kashi Coal, The coal workers of Benares

-About Kashi Coal A few months ago, I started shooting a photo project about labourers, ... workers of any kind. Oddly enough, I would always stumble upon places and people that took me down, as a good friend of mine would call it, "the GERMINAL path" ( from Zola's book, about the resilience and hope, amongst miners). So this will be the first part of the GERMINAL series... a short documentary about the coal workers of Varanasi. These men work in teams of about a dozen, unloading wagons of coal. Many of them come from UP, or the neighbouring state of Bihar. The hours are long and the pay is little. To sum the situation up, we are talking about 4-5 trains per month, 70 tons per wagon, 59 wagon. Thus the 200+ workers, are to load 60 trucks per day, for a daily wage of 70 rupees or so.. For a reminder, 1 USD is worth about 64 rupees. During the shooting of the project, The camera awareness was omnipresent. The workers would be curious and yet resent my presence, that of a foreigner who would spend countless hours, photographing their work.. their plight. Once again, overcoming the language and cultural barrier, that is felt much more as one steps into lower socio-economic realms, was hard and mandatory. -Thoughts about photography What is the reason for which I take photos, what is the reason that I go to these places? It could be summed up by love and passion. I like humans, just as much as I despise them (at times), I am curious about them, ... about the other, and through that very difference that exists I fight my own fears and demons. Firstly, the photography itself, the taking of and editing arises from a basic and , I call it, a selfish endeavour...the art of taking and producing the photo, which then translates into the compulsion that is found within the shutter sound and its activating gesture, the security and structure that lies within the frame of the viewfinder. (....)