Here, wealth is created at the expense of the environment, thanks to the 24-hour, 7-days-a-week rape of Mother Earth. This is not done daintily or with care. This is done greedily, hungrily.
Monstrous machines clear huge swaths of land on the side of mountains, which are already half hollow from heavy mining. Countless processing plants belch hazy smoke into the atmosphere. Every night, over 1,500 lorries ply the well-worn roads around the mines, stuffed to the brim with their payload, iron ore.
So heavily have they been used, the unpaved roads are ground to a pulp, peppered by crater-sized potholes. It's not uncommon to see a driver crouched by the side of the road, head in hands, next to an overturned lorry, its contents spilled in every direction.
The predominant colour of Bellary is red, owing to iron ore particles. Everything's an other-worldly red, as if a fine layer of Martian dust has come and covered the entire district.
Monkeys casually sip from puddles of scarlet water. Once green vegetation has turned rust-red. Rivers run the colour of masala chai and dried paan spit, evenly distributing pollutants from mines and their accompanying processing plants to every corner of the constituency.
Image: A truck waters Bellary's unpaved roads to address the pothole problem.
Also see: 'We were promised 70 lakhs, not a penny has come' | India Votes
