The man was walking down an alley with a large load on his head

Man carrying burden — Man carrying a large bag

As I walked through the alley, a man came toward me, cutting through the dusty air of Malda. He wore a tank top and carried a massive sack—like a bag of rice—balanced squarely on his head. Rather than being weighed down by the burden, he seemed to lift his voice as if to flaunt his strength. Clearly, this was his daily work. In towns like Malda, such sights are nothing unusual. Where carts and machinery are scarce, the most efficient way to move heavy loads is still on the heads and backs of laborers.

When you think about it, mechanization is simply the flip side of economic power. In a place like Malda, where wages are painfully low, it is not a forklift but the sinews and spines of men that haul the loads. For employers, laborers are cheaper than machines and require no repair costs when broken. For the laborers themselves, of course, it means being nothing more than replaceable bodies. Yet when I saw this man’s wide mouth open as if to shout, “Hey, look at me!” I couldn’t help but smile, despite the cold arithmetic of economics running through my mind.

In the end, it was his sweat-drenched tank top and the sight of him shouldering his burden that spoke most eloquently of everyday life here. The moment was captured by my camera, but his voice didn’t linger in my ears—it dissolved instead into the greater roar of India itself.

Malda on Google Map

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