In the foggy morning mist, Lakshmi steadily limps to her usual place on the temple path. Using this traversed causeway to benefit from people going to and from the temple to pray, she, like many others, markets her malady for the pity it arouses in order to make a living.Covered in filthy pink rags, she sits on the cold, bare ground with her tin begging bowl and displays two legs suffering from Filarisis. Immensely swollen and covered in seething blisters, these blighted legs are Lakshmi’s only card to play. She was pushed out of her home five years ago because her family couldn’t afford to feed her and all her sisters. Her sickness was her calling card and it was decided that she use it to beg. That is how she ended up in Dharamsala, a northern town a two-day train ride from her home.

is part of an ever-growing migration of the poor who travel from their villages to beg in richer areas of India. Lakshmi’s home province of Andra Pradesh is one of the poorest in the sub-continent consequently wresting out its most impoverished residents and propelling them elsewhere to seek their livelihoods.  Many individuals, especially those with chronic ailments, are driven out by their families, usually due to a lack of provisions and the inability of the disabled person to contribute resources to the household. Having an external and visible affliction can have its benefits for these families and often times, the afflicted will travel to far-away provinces to beg, eventually sending the money home.