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You Think Your Life is Hard? (Lives of Brickmaking Slaves)

Harsh Strongman
Rows of handmade mud bricks drying beside stacks of finished bricks
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I was driving around and exploring some new places in India and I came across a bunch of brickmaking “factories” on my way.

This was in a rural part of the country and they weren’t real “factories” (there was no equipment and everything was done by hand). It was probably some kind of rural industry supplying bricks for poor local people.

Labourers digging mud and clay by hand at a rural brick kiln
These guys take out mud and clay from the Earth.
Workers among stacks of drying bricks at the brick kiln
The scene almost reminded me of those western movies on African slavery.
Woman crouching to press mud into a brick mould beside rows of drying bricks
This woman’s job is turning the mud to bricks.
Close-up of a metal brick mould in the mud, with a bowl of water and a worker's hands
The mud is used to make bricks with this stencil.
Workers' makeshift camp: a tarp shelter, cooking pots on the ground and a small fire
This is where they cook and eat.

It’s a hard life.

Shoveling clay. Scooping up the last layers by hand. Putting the clay into the stencil manually each time.

What about your life? I heard you complain about how hard your life is.

Is your life really so hard?

Or are you being a little bitch?

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