Prabhu Bricks

Out here in Pallapatti Village, near Kottapatti, we’ve got our brick business going. It’s a rural area, so we have plenty of space to spread out the bricks to dry. We’ve been at number 55 for a long time now. It’s a family-run thing mostly. We wake up early, get the fire going if we’re doing clay bricks, or manage the machines for the other types. It’s physical work and there’s no getting around that. Your hands get rough and you’re always tired by the end of the day. We don't have a big sales team. If someone needs bricks, they just drive down to the village and talk to us directly. We show them what we have in the yard and figure out how to get it to their site. The road leading up to us can be a bit bumpy, especially after the monsoon, but the trucks manage it. We’ve seen the village change a bit over the years, with more people building permanent houses instead of just small huts. That keeps us busy enough. We don't use any fancy language to describe what we do. We just make bricks and sell them to people who need them. It’s a simple way to make a living and we’re quite used to the rhythm of the seasons and how they affect the work we can do. Some days are harder than others, but we like being our own bosses.