| It's only mid-morning, but we've already missed the rubber harvest for the day. The workers make their rounds to gather the latex just past dawn, avoiding the sticky heat of day. Here in southwestern Tamil Nadu, as in the neighboring state of Kerala, rubber plantations abound. This one near Nager Coil is relatively small, but follows the same basic format of any. Rough-cut coconut shells are halved and affixed, one to each tree, to catch the milky sap that runs down from a thin diagonal wound cut afresh each day by the harvesters. |
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Inside the main processing house - a one-room concrete block that is surprisingly cool and airy - three women work the latex. Buckets of sap collected that morning sit waiting inside the door. Two of the women are stirring latex in a square concrete tub, mixing it with acid that will help it congeal, before transferring it to shallow metal pans. The third skims bubbles off the surface of stacked pans to ensure a better-quality product. All are silent, and do not lift their gaze from their work. |
| The foreman continues his tour, proudly showing us to several more concrete buildings containing rubber in various stages of pressing and drying. The final product, at least from his perspective, hangs lifeless and heavy on a series of clotheslines near his office. These rubber mats are not direct-to-consumer; they are sold to another businessman who will fashion them into more usable products. |
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It's tea-time, at least for the foreman and us, his guests. He ushers us into his office, an impeccably clean and puritan space with dark wood upright chairs. An old man, white-bearded and thin, comes out from the porch shadows to ring a small iron tire suspended from the eaves. I am amazed at the beautiful tone that escapes this unlikely instrument. |