Vellore, Tamil Nadu

SAT, MAR 14, 2026

Drilling in life lessons with father

A young boy from the Government Model School in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu looking at his father’s life at the stone quarry through his lens

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I am K. Mukesh, a Class 11 student at the Government Model School in Vellore district, where I study Photography as an elective subject. I have learned how to handle a camera and what to document through it. I cover the struggles of working people like my 51-year-old father, Kathirvelu K., a driller in a stone quarry.

While father is away at work my mother Vasanthi K. manages the house and takes care of my 12-year-old sister Darshika and me. We get to see our father once in 15 days when he returns home for one or two days. Often quite tried and listless. It is the only time I get to spend with him.

When he is home, I ask him many questions to know more about his work, and he always answers very patiently. And yet, I had never quite understood the nature of his work, until one day after being encouraged by Sripathy, our photography class instructor, I decided to accompany him to his workplace. I had my camera with me.

I wrote what I saw – a story of my father’s life in a few words and many photographs.

K. Mukesh

My father has been working in the stone quarry for the past 10 years. But I had never been to his workplace before. Till then I didn't know how he travelled there. His worksite is almost 97 kilometres away from our village Melmoil in Vellore district. He has to take a bus to Tiruttani in Tiruvallur district, and it takes him about two hours to reach the nearest bus station. From there he walks another kilometre and a half to reach the quarry where he works

K. Mukesh

There three workers share a 9 ft x 9 ft room. They cook and eat by themselves or buy food from nearby shops. For about five years, my father and two other men from our village lived and worked in Walajapet in Ranipet district. During Covid-19 they all had stopped working. And then by the time the lockdown was over his contract came to an end. That is when he came to this place I visited in Tirutttani

K. Mukesh

The experience was quite overwhelming for me. It made me realize so much about my father's life of labour. Until then, I knew nothing about his work, or his life at the quarry. But after seeing him and his co-workers, my love and respect for him grew stronger. Every day they wake up at 2:30 a.m. to get ready and after tea they hop onto a tractor and reach the quarry about 200 metres away from their room

K. Mukesh

I ask my father why he chose this job. He tells me that he had worked in a leather factory for five-six years. Once that closed down, he worked in agriculture, but the income was too little. We have our own one-acre land, bought by our grandparents that we farm. We grow paddy for our own use, and my mother also grows brinjal, drumstick and okra. We have four cows and three goats but the income from them doesn't even cover their own food and care expenses. In 2014, a man named Ganesan from a neighbouring village came to our house and told my father about the drilling work at the quarry. Since then, my father and Ganesan have been working there together

K. Mukesh

Early in the morning the supervisor divides the work area among the quarrymen. After taking their places, my father and the other workers drill holes until 8:00 a.m. Their breakfast is brought to the site by the supervisor, and they get half an hour for it before they resume work till mid-day. After about 11 hours of bone-crushing labour, at about 1:30, they return to their room and cook lunch. They rest for a while until 5:00 in the evening. Then it is time to fill diesel in the tractors and sharpen the rods. They have an early dinner and go to sleep by 9 p.m. The next ‘day’ begins hours before dawn

K. Mukesh

I meet Anandan at the quarry. He is 50 years old and comes from Salem district. He told me that he had lost his right hand in an accident in a quarry in Salem. He was unable to do any work for two years after that. But since last year he is back at the quarry. In the photo here he is carrying the drilling rods to the workspace. About 60 to 70 labourers, including a small number of women, work here. And no one wears anything to shield their feet, head, eyes, or ears from possible injuries. All of them, mostly below 58 years, work in dusty, noisy and risky environments for long hours without a break and any protective gear. I cannot image the kind of physical strength, endurance, patience and even the level of desperation it takes to do such work

K. Mukesh

How are the wages calculated? I ask my father when I see him put in such long hours of work. He says that they are not paid by the hour, but by the number of holes they drill in a day. It takes about 6–8 minutes to drill one hole. In a single day, a worker can drill somewhere between 50 and 80 holes, if he were to toil for 10 hours without a break. To ensure that he digs the maximum number of holes in a day, my father leaves for work by 3 a.m. ‘After 9 a.m., the sun gets too harsh,” he says “and it is almost impossible to work. However, we continue to drill until around 1 – 1:30 p.m. to complete at least 80 holes’

K. Mukesh

The iron rod used for drilling is about 5 feet long. The work is intense and demanding physical stamina. Often it needs two people to drill a single hole. I ask father if he has ever had an accident while at work. Only once, he says. While at work, a rock he was standing on slipped from under him and he fell nearly 10 feet. Luckily, he escaped with a minor injury. I have seen him watch the news of quarry accidents on TV and say: ‘God will protect me from such things. It will not happen to me.’ Now I know why

K. Mukesh

All the people who work with my father are from Bihar, West Bengal, and other states. Only three of them, including my father, are from Tamil Nadu. The female workers are locals who live near the quarry. I ask my father why he doesn’t go back to farming. ‘There is no income in farming. Let your mother manage it at home. Until you finish studying and get a job, I will continue this work,’ he says

K. Mukesh

My father often tells me: 'You cannot work under the hot sun and on the hard ground like me. Study what you love. Don’t worry about the cost, pursue it. Get a good job.' He had dropped out of school in the Class 9 due to family circumstances and was unable to continue his studies. My mother completed Class 10 but then she too had to give up as she lost her father. My sister is currently in Class 6. That makes me the first person in my family to reach the higher secondary level

My father feels very lonely at his workplace. He has got no one to talk to as most of the workers speak in Hindi. He has a phone where he downloads and watches Tamil movies. That is the only entertainment he knows, I guess

K. Mukesh

Every 15 days, he comes home and gives all his earnings to my mother -- a maximum of 6,000 rupees. That is not much for 15 days of gruelling work, 11 hours a day. That is about 6 rupees for each hole he drills. Often when it rains there is no work

K. Mukesh

During monsoon the rainwater fills the grounds making work impossible. He then has to look for other jobs and would hardly get 3,000 rupees. There are days when the explosives do not arrive and there is no work. Also, drilling requires two people and if one person sick, then another cannot do the same amount of work

K. Mukesh

My father is a quiet man. At home he talks more to my sister than to me. From what I’ve seen, my parents also don’t communicate a lot with each other. If my mother asks him to do something, he simply does it. That’s all. He doesn’t speak much with anyone in the village either

K. Mukesh

This is my father at work. When home he goes out only to buy household essentials. He doesn’t even attend village festivals. I ask him: Why? He says, ‘I only get one or two days at home. Why should I waste it on a festival?’

K. Mukesh

This is Nandhan. He is in his fifties. I speak to him and other workers at the quarry about my father. They all say the same thing. He is a quiet person, doesn’t talk much. He likes his tea and biscuits, they say. That is why they all call him ‘biscuit’

K. Mukesh

Father is like a rock to my mother! They have been married almost 18 years now. When I ask mother about him, she says, 'he has never let me, or you children suffer. You must study well, get a good job, and take care of him so that he can forget his hardships'

K. Mukesh

I knew that he drilled rocks, but I never realized how difficult and challenging his work was. After visiting the quarry my love and respect for him has increased. Now I understand the challenges he faces, the reason for his long working hours, little sleep, and perhaps, even his silences. In this photo, a worker in the quarry is taking the drilling roads from the tractors to the site where they are needed. Everyone works like this six days a week

K. Mukesh

When others are doing transportation work, my father sharpens the rods for making the drilling holes. After the break he continues to drill in the same spots making the holes deeper. Once he has got the holes ready, women workers come to fill them with explosives. For the past three years, the same three women have been doing this work at the same site. They come in the afternoons to work and return home in the evening. The men then connect the wires and set everything up for blasting

K. Mukesh

In the evening, the blasting is completed. The next day, workers break, collect and take the rocks to lorries and JCB machines. The rocks then are processed into crushed stone aggregates (jalli), Manufactured Sand (known as M-Sand) and Plaster Sand (known as P-Sand). These materials are used in construction industries across the country for large-scale infrastructure work. Men then engage in various crushing, screening, cleaning, and grading activities

K. Mukesh

My father liked me visiting his workplace. When he saw my photographs, he was very happy. And my work will show the reality of his life at the quarry to the world. Even my mother had never known much about her husband’s job. She was moved to tears when she saw the photographs. My sister smiled on looking at these and I think she is now more kind towards my father. We wait for him to return home

This story was originally reported in Tamil.

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Drilling in life lessons with father

A young boy from the Government Model School in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu looking at his father’s life at the stone quarry through his lens

Donate to PARI

K. Mukesh

Pratishtha Pandya

M. Palani Kumar

Vinodhini Shivkumar

Drilling in life lessons with father

A young boy from the Government Model School in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu looking at his father’s life at the stone quarry through his lens

Donate to PARI

K. Mukesh

Pratishtha Pandya

M. Palani Kumar

Vinodhini Shivkumar