India, Nov. 11 -- KS Anandan

Anytime a factory shuts down its operations, countless lives are tragically uprooted. When the very source of bread and butter, the lifeline for adjoining communities shrivels up, hordes of ill-fated consequences keep arriving in profusion. This is precisely what transpired when the long-serving Sterlite copper plant at Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, came to a sudden halt.

The nearby denizens of the land, perpetually dependent on the factory-drawn wages, saw their lives suddenly entrenched in the quick-sinking quagmire, flanked by despair on one side and helpless despondence on the other.

This dark and crippling entourage of forsaken opportunities goes tearing through every fragile living arrangement. It loses no...