Smoke and ashes 1

For kilometers in every direction, there is not a hint of colour. Everything’s is gray-brown, soot-blackened and dust- blown. At Fatullah, on the banks of the Sitalakhya, the only signs of life are the workers of the 250 or so brick kilns on either side of the river. Everyday, work starts at six in the morning, carting head-loads of eight bricks from the furnace to the supply pile. Each trip back and forth is allotted a little over a minute. Any more, and the entire cycle will fall behind. For a twelve-hour workday, during which an average worker carries about five thousand bricks, he earns Tk. 80 after his expenses are paid. Seven days a week. No work? No pay.