Cash & BlooD

Aluva, Kerala, India

Although cattle are considered holy in Hindu-dominated India, some are legally slaughtered. I had heard the drivers would often smuggle in extra cows with their load, and sell that meat on the black market. It was a process I had to photograph. So I asked around, posing as a medical student, and eventually convinced some men involved to let me tag along one night. I remember pulling up to a house and could see the silhouettes of men dragging a buffalo into a shed. Although I wasn’t far from my home, I felt like I was a world away. I was filled with unfathomable guilt and anxiety, my stomach turning in knots. But with the camera as my witness, I documented the clandestine slaughter—a violent activity seldom know about, and even less have seen.