“Ora Kaj Kore”

Remember the famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore? The poet, philosopher and painter penned his thoughts and experience about the daily workers who toil hard to earn their livelihood. The world-famous novelist tried to capture their plight and pleasures in their daily hard work from dawn to dusk through the web of words. The same goes true for the photo journalists and amateur photographers who try to tell a story of the workers around us through their lens. Poets, painters and photographers try to add a narrative to what they see, feel and experience.

The question is, if the concept of workers is limited to only the daily wage earners or goes beyond that?

Definition of Workers

According to Cambridge Dictionary, worker refers to anyone working in a particular job or a particular way. It also refers to someone who works for an organization or a company but does not hold a powerful position. In plural form, workers are those belonging to the working class. The workers are a group of people who have little or no property and have to do a lot of physical work to earn money.

Workers through Photographers’ Lens

Workers are a favourite subject for many photographers. Many eminent photographers have delicately portrayed destituteness, desperation and depression of the workers. Workers with heavy loads put on their heads or slung on their shoulders drudging and dragging their feet on the rugged terrain make our heart heavy and eyes moist.

Their never-to-end misery and hand-to-mouth story often make us feel curious to know how they manage to live. And it becomes an unsolved mystery for the high-heeled people and even the middle class how these workers manage to summon a smile on their sagging, wrinkled face after a day of hectic work and with a petty sum in lieu of inhumanly and insanely laborious works.

Such photographs bring a knee-jerk reaction from those who have the cushion and comfort of their riches and that is why, such a feeling is as transitory as the droplets on leaves. These photos make the shutterbugs famous and earn them prestigious awards along with astronomical prize money on national and international level.

Does Lens Tell Everything?

Some people wonder if the photographers and common people in general are really concerned about the workers’ condition or it’s just our habit of romanticising with deprivation, desperation and depression of this class. They toil hard but in return, get back home with a paltry wage and just a handful of grains that are never enough to support their families.

They shed sweat and many of us shed crocodile tears. Do we really connect to them? Is it really possible for the privileged section to feel the hardships that they go through day in and day out while enjoying comforts of life? We capture what we see and feel but does it present the true picture? Connecting to the workers around us is the most important thing to understand plight, pride, prejudice and pleasure of these people with no or little material possessions.

Struggle with and within

Workers – the have-not class – are subject to never-ending exploitation by the rich and privileged section of our society. Luck seems to be not on their side but that is only a slice of the heart-wrenching story hard to capture through lens sans an inner eye. As a photographer, We have always tried to understand their constant fights with the enemies in the society and also their struggle with their inner self.

Final Words

The whole point of subjecting them to our lens should not be limited to discovering, detailing and depicting a story but be extended to making a soul-to-soul connection in order to bring out what they are subjugated to internally and externally.