On our way to Saikhawthlir village (meaning Sai = Elephant, Khaw = town/village, thlir = seeing/looking/sighting. A town/village where an Elephant is sighted or spotted). Following Phodoti, who walks 6-8 hours to collect a sack of rice. This was our shoot. We were dead by the time we reached her village on the top of a hill. In the photograph, also at the background is Rauta, our friend, without whose help it would have been impossible to carry our equipment. Phodoti's story is pretty much the story of most villagers in Mizoram. More so for the marginalised poor. This includes the Bru s and the Chakma s. Within the poor Mizos, they are treated differently. Almost a million people in Mizoram are surviving on one meal a day. That's because of bamboo flowering that happens every 48 years. It attracts rats, that wipe away acres of crops. This report was on Phodoti's village near the Myanmar border
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