ezhil-anna-he-made-me-from-clay

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Jul 25, 2022

Ezhil anna, he made me from clay

In this personal essay, photographer Palani Kumar shows how R. Ezhilarasan – the artist who’s brought light and laughter to the lives of countless children in Tamil Nadu – has inspired and shaped his perspective

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Author

M. Palani Kumar

M. Palani Kumar is Staff Photographer at People's Archive of Rural India. He is interested in documenting the lives of working-class women and marginalised people.

Palani has received the Amplify grant in 2021, and Samyak Drishti and Photo South Asia Grant in 2020. He received the first Dayanita Singh-PARI Documentary Photography Award in 2022. Palani was also the cinematographer of ‘Kakoos' (Toilet), a Tamil-language documentary exposing the practice of manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu.

Editor

Pratishtha Pandya

Pratishtha Pandya is a Senior Editor at PARI where she leads PARI's creative writing section. She is also a member of the PARIBhasha team and translates and edits stories in Gujarati. Pratishtha is a published poet working in Gujarati and English.

Photo Editor

Binaifer Bharucha

Binaifer Bharucha is a freelance photographer based in Mumbai, and Photo Editor at the People's Archive of Rural India.