It was hard to come up with a picture that embodied the complex feelings of being in the cashew factory in Mangalore. On the one hand it was nice to see the women having jobs and day care for their children, but at the same time the days were long and the work monotonous and hard. And the pay was meagre by western standards, our guide said four dollars a day, and dodged the question of how long a work day was. The working conditions were not bad, I’d say, but the noise was incredible and I didn’t see a single woman with a pair of ear protectors or plugs. So one is happy they have work, but also wanting conditions to be better for them. I singled out this one lovely woman at the moment she raised her eyes from her work to look outside. The light vaguely made me think of Vermeer. I converted it to black and white so that the light would be emphasized, without the distraction of colour. I imagined her imagining, of being outside and free of the mechanical clamour of the factory. It’s hard to see, but she wears a thin latex glove as she shells the cashews because the oil of the cashew shell is toxic. That’s why you’ll never see cashews for sale in their shells.