Atmaram Vaibhise travels to Kolhapur in western Maharashtra with his family every year after Diwali. Once there, he and his wife work in sugarcane fields until April -- their 14-hour workdays starting at four every morning. They chop the cane, stack it on bullock carts before transporting the load to nearby factories. They get paid Rs. 350 per tonne of sugarcane for this, earning anywhere between Rs. 40,000-50,000 by the end of the crushing season.
