White gold is what the farmers call it as cotton ranks among the most lucrative of the cash crops. Indian cotton is popular internationally, making its way into the cool, smooth folds of branded shirts and yet has left tears and blood for many small farmers in Andhra Pradesh. Dogged by genetically modified seeds, fertilizers, treacherous monsoons and impossible debt, farmers lost their money, hopes and even lives to the white fluffy masses.
For the marginal farmers beleaguered by crop failures, cotton, which fetches a much bigger minimum support price from the Government, seems like a cloud nine descending straight to the earth and the area of cultivation has gone up drastically over the years, now ranging between 1.2-1.4 million hectares.
Wiki says cotton has been grown in India for more than three thousand years, and it is referred to in the Rig-veda, written in 1500BC. The pictures are taken outside a ginning mill in Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh. Ginning is the process of separating the fibre from the seeds and then it is sent to a spinning mill to be turned into yarn.
Thousands of tractors and carts bring loads of cotton to the ginning mills and are unloaded at the weighbridge and is bought by millers and the Cotton Corporation of India, the government agency to buy the raw cotton.
Cart wheels trundle on the gravelly and hilly roads of the Adilabad as the farmers patiently await first for their cattle to take them to the destination and then to line up among hundreds like themselves for the miller to accept the load.
Exploitation is the name of the game as the carts are made to wait for days so that the farmer tires himself out and would sell without asking for a remunerative price. Children often accompany their fathers on the trip and small groups find their own forms of entertainment as they recline on the carts.
A kid jumps about on a rainy afternoon in Hyderabad
An old woman blesses her son after a holy dip in Shipra
A tribal little girl in her finery somewhere in Madhya Pradesh
The Holy man and his Cow in Ujjain
A bunch of girls going home from work in Madhya Pradesh, India 
A girl muses as she waits for her friend in a village fair in Madhya Pradesh, India
A horse cart traverses the length of the Burhanpur fort in Madhya Pradesh
Pilgrims soak in the winter sun at Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India
A Muslim girl watches the world go by in Bhairongarh, Madhya Pradesh
Pilgrims dry their clothes after a holy dip in Shipra River in Ujjain
A man studies the Quran in a lane next to Ujjain Mahakaal temple
Kids look for pebbles and shells in River Narmada, India
Late summer sunlight streaming through a tree
A little girl smiles as she watches her brother play a game at a fair in India.
A fisherman awaits his colleague to come ashore in Andhra Pradesh
A Hindu wedding in progress
A fisherman gazes into the water to spot fish in River Narmada
Boys on a deserted beach carry shells in a bag in Andhra Pradesh
A tribal girl smiles into the camera in Hyderabad, India 
