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I for one have to have a cup of tea [even better if it is chai made with all the right spices] every morning. But after a trip to Munnar, in Kerala, I was interested by its production. More than how it was produced, it was who produced it that intrigued me the most.

Check this commercial out for Snapple's White Tea. Like most consumers, we are loathe to know where our food comes from. We poke fun at what we don't know.

But the business of tea is a serious multi-billion dollar industry spanning a great many nations. Munem Wasif, a photographer based in Bangladesh, has been quietly working on a project documenting the lives of tea plantation workers.

Come back to see Munem's images, one-a-day beginning on March 1.

Meanwhile, here is his statement:

First, I'd like to say that this didn't begin as an assignment for me. I was photographing my friend's wedding in Habiganj District in Bangladesh. After finishing the assignment, he told me that I should visit a tea garden. I said okay.

I had the typical visual of tea gardens in my mind; what we saw on TV ads – an exotic, green, ‘travel' look. It was a rainy day and we were going by motorbike. When I entered the tea garden, my preconceived ideas broke down, because then I was seeing how the people really lived and worked. A huge community… they were also citizens of my country, but I didn't know them. Yet I drink tea every day for refreshment. So it was a striking thing for me to do this story.

When I started working on this story, it was really tough because there was no access for journalists there. You can take a picture of beautiful tea estate and leave it there. However the real problem arises when you are talking to the workers, visiting their house, breaking bread with them and talking to them about their problems. A very different picture emerges then. I worked in various gardens, so that the management couldn't notice me. Meanwhile, I was learning about the colonial structure and political framework of the tea garden – the meaning of ‘estate', the colonial dress code, even how the garden was mapped. For me, it is a modern form of slavery.

The tea garden authorities want to isolate the workers from the mainstream media and workers live a hidden life so that we can't see their sufferings. None of the management wants to cooperate to show us the workers life. Another huge problem is that I cannot go to the same tea garden frequently. Contacts dissolve. So every time I go to a garden I have to make new relationships, which may not always be renewable.

I have been working on this story for almost two years. The conditions in Ratna are very bad, and it has been closed for almost one-and-a-half years. So the workers have nothing to do. Many have died because of a lack of medicine. But Lashkarpur produces tea steadily. The cycle of oppression will continue, like in many other tea gardens in Bangladesh.

While we met once, and only very briefly, in Dhaka several years ago, I saw in G.M.B. Akash's work the kind of depth and breadth that I wished more photographers in the region could emulate. And now, he is clearly on a winning streak.

Just because you haven't seen it does not mean it doesn't exist. There is a plethora of talent in South Asia, waiting to be discovered. What makes Akash shine is of course his vision, his use of color, his sense of timing and light. All those things one would expect from a photographer. But those skills alone will limit your beautiful images to be stored away in shoe boxes or hard drives, never to be seen or appreciated by anyone.

What differentiates Akash is his pluckiness in putting his work and his name out there in front of people who matter most in this business: photo editors. Every month or so for the past year, I have received emails from Akash saying that he has either won or has been considered a finalist in one photo contest or another. For serious artists of the medium it is easy to tell yourself that you create art for yourself and contests don't mean a whole lot. That's fine, if you want to starve. But if you want to survive and continue creating work that is useful to society, you do now have to, well, promote yourself. And, Akash is very good at that. Entering and winning contests means putting his images and his name out into the real working world where editors and photo buyers are perusing, and perhaps persuing, new talent.

Here is a typical note from Akash. It's simple and to the point.

Dear Friends and colleagues,

You will be happy to know that i have won First Place, Color in Photographer's Forum Magazine's 26Th annual photo contest. USA.

This year 20,000 images were submitted from all around the world. As a award i will receive 1000 USD and a canon Digital SLR camera.

Due to Bangladesh’s large population, inadequate seats on the trains and poverty, it is quite common to see a thick layer of people occupying the roof of a train. Frequent accidents, which occur when a free rider slips, are not enough to deter these stowaways of the railway.

If you are a finalist or won a contest send me a note. And if it has helped you garner more assignments, definitely let me know the name of the publication. Email me the contest's name, your winning image(s) and a link to your website.

Steve Raymer, a professor at Indiana University [my alma mater] and a former National Geographic photographer has been on a vision quest, documenting the Indian diaspora. Looks like he has made some headway with his project. He is shopping his book around and hopefully we'll see it in print.

The morning light at 6.45 is terrific; with not much traffic on the roads there is no smog or dust to muck up the air. The drive from Bangalore to Mysore now is a pleasant one. The road, divided by Hibiscus flowers, caters to cars, trucks and buses that rush through towns in a blur. We passed by coconut trees, rice fields and sugar cane farms and lots of people carrying idols of Ganesha on the back of three-wheeled pickup trucks [It's Ganesh Chathurthi here in India today].

We arrived in Mysore in good time. Mr. T.S. Satyan wasn't expecting us till about 10 a.m. so we scooted out to my parent's new apartment in that city to check it out. Though completed, the walls were stark white like a hospital and with no cabinets or any furnishing, the flat looks naked.

The directions to Satyan's residence left us a little perplexed because the road he lives on is an unmarked one-way street. Arriving at 10.30, we were met at the gate by Satyan's son, Ravi, who ushered us in. Mr. Satyan, in a chekered half-sleeve shirt, shook our hands and drew us into his living room.

While we had traded emails now for almost four years this was our first meeting. Several years ago, my mother had gifted us Satyan's book, In Love With Life, a retrospective monograph. The images were single black and white frames showcasing Satyan's love of people. It's easy to see what makes them special. I had never seen, at least in a photographer that matches Satyan's experiences in the business, a sense of intimacy or place with his subjects. They appear to be patiently visited, not the usual grab shots that we are so prone to making these days with digital cameras. It is indeed unfortunate that Satyan's work is largely unseen in the West as it provides a greater perspective of India's people and culture than any of the recent cliches that we are so fond of using in our publications.

We chatted about cameras [we are all closet geeks at heart] and he confessed that he had never shot anything with a digital camera. When he worked as a photographer, his gear included nothing more than a Nikon FM-2 with either a 28mm or a 105 mm lens. His images reveal that he used his feet to zoom in and out of people's lives. The book, In Love With Life, whet my appetite to see his work and he readily welcomed the idea of showing us more of his prints.

In sets of about 20 prints, neatly organized in about five or six large bags, were some of the most glorious black and white RC prints I have seen to date. The inescapable hint of photo fixer was still evident in them, but there were no stains or fingerprints. It didn't take me long to ask Mr. Satyan whether he would sell any of them to me. He said he offered his images for sale to art dealers and collectors, but offered them to me at a steep discount. I took my time selecting about 12 prints that spoke to me personally. If Mr. Satyan agrees, I'll be happy to share them with you here in this space.

The weather was warm but pleasantly so. We stepped out for a bit to visit in his garden, a place of refuge for him. The cozy lawn was punctuated by red and pink Hibiscus flowers. Even the outside walls of his home hosted small potted plants that were a source of great pride for him.

Talk turned to lunch as it was 1 p.m. by the time we were done discussing his prints and his experiences as a freelancer working for the famous Black Star agency. The simple but delicious lunch consisted of some Karnataka favorites: bissi belle baath, beans palya, yogurt rice with cilantro, rasam and some sundigei.

Post lunch, Mr. Satyan patiently signed each of his prints and also gifted us a couple of extra autographed copies of his memoir, Alive and Clicking, published by Penguin India.

Satyan and his wife Ratna were gracious hosts who made us feel welcome and really at home. I feel honored to have been able to meet them and look forward to our next meeting after my parents move to Mysore.

[I'll update this post with images as soon as I get back to the US. As usual, I shot images in RAW and don't have a way of converting them to JPG here on this laptop I am borrowing!]