K M Asad
Tea Plucker
April 26,2015 - Sylhet, Bangladesh –Portrait of a tea plucker in Sylhet. One lazy Sunday morning, holding a cup of vapor rising tea and day’s newspaper...do we need anything else to enjoy a perfect morning! Sylhet is a traditional tea growing area. People living here are the tea workers. They came from various parts of India in the British period and still are living under those circumstances. They are unaware of their right. And they are passing their lives as a slave of cultured people. The area of Sylhet has over 150 gardens including three of the largest tea gardens in the world both in area and production. Nearly 300,000 workers are employed on the tea estates of which over 75% are women. It seems they need an art to pluck two leaves one bud from every tea plant. The calculation of daily wage is 70tk(1$) for plucking at least 2 kg leaves per day for a worker. These tea workers are leading their life and completing their work through untold hardships. Being the bondservants of the civilized people, they are still sacrificing their generation after generation for working in such a condition and living in a dark world of opaqueness. Their hidden desire may be come to us through the bed tea with the morning newspaper and tell us that- “if we are not there may be you people won’t get a perfect morning everyday and that is why we work really hard, constantly, selflessly only to make your every morning as beautiful as life is”.
Tea Plucker
April 26,2015 - Sylhet, Bangladesh –Portrait of a tea plucker in Sylhet. One lazy Sunday morning, holding a cup of vapor rising tea and day’s newspaper...do we need anything else to enjoy a perfect morning! Sylhet is a traditional tea growing area. People living here are the tea workers. They came from various parts of India in the British period and still are living under those circumstances. They are unaware of their right. And they are passing their lives as a slave of cultured people. The area of Sylhet has over 150 gardens including three of the largest tea gardens in the world both in area and production. Nearly 300,000 workers are employed on the tea estates of which over 75% are women. It seems they need an art to pluck two leaves one bud from every tea plant. The calculation of daily wage is 70tk(1$) for plucking at least 2 kg leaves per day for a worker. These tea workers are leading their life and completing their work through untold hardships. Being the bondservants of the civilized people, they are still sacrificing their generation after generation for working in such a condition and living in a dark world of opaqueness. Their hidden desire may be come to us through the bed tea with the morning newspaper and tell us that- “if we are not there may be you people won’t get a perfect morning everyday and that is why we work really hard, constantly, selflessly only to make your every morning as beautiful as life is”.