Balaji Bricks

Out here in Roddam, things move a bit slower than in the big city. We are set up at 456 and it’s been our workplace for some time. Being in Anantapur, the ground is dry and good for what we do at Balaji Bricks. We spend most of our daylight hours out in the open. The soil gets under your fingernails and stays there. It’s not a glamorous job at all but it keeps us going. We mostly deal with the people around here who are building small walls or fixing up their sheds. There is always a pile of bricks waiting to be moved. Sometimes the truck shows up late and we have to sit around talking until it gets here. My family helps out when they can. We don't use big machines for everything, a lot of it is just manual labor. You can find us easily if you know the road. The heat in the afternoon can be tough so we start very early in the morning. We don't have a secretary answering phones, you just usually find one of us near the kiln or the stacks. It’s just us doing what needs to be done to get the bricks out. Nothing fancy about it. We just hope for clear skies so the drying goes well. We've seen a lot of changes in Roddam, but the bricks stay the same.