It is just another summer day in the dimly lit, sweltering powerloom unit belonging to 52-year-old Prabhakar Aluwala in Bhiwandi. Two labourers wearing vests move swiftly from one loom to the next to make the necessary turns to keep the yarn spinning without getting disturbed and ruining the design. They are manufacturing the grey cotton used for making sarees, as part of an earlier contract. The labourers don’t have time to pose for pictures. There is hardly any room to take any in the unit anyway; in that cramped space, not being careful can lead to injury of the kind one saw in old Hindi movies based on Mumbai’s working class.
