Kerala's high ranges hold an economy and a society that operate by different rules from the coastal plain. If you visit Munnar, Wayanad or Idukki you are entering it, and knowing what you are looking at changes the visit entirely. THE CROPS തേയില tea — the clipped green carpet above about a thousand metres. Beautiful, and entirely artificial: an industrial monoculture planted where rainforest stood. ഏലം cardamom — the hills are literally named for it, ഏലമല, the Cardamom Hills. It grows in shade under a canopy, so the plantations look like forest from a distance and are far less ecologically brutal than tea. Idukki's auctions set prices that matter internationally. കാപ്പി coffee — mainly Wayanad, largely robusta, often interplanted with pepper vines climbing the shade trees. റബ്ബർ rubber — the big one economically. Kerala produces the overwhelming majority of India's natural rubber, concentrated in Kottayam and the midland belt: straight rows of slender trees, spiral cuts, small cups of latex, sheets drying under smoke. കുരുമുളക് pepper · തെങ്ങ് coconut · കശുമാവ് cashew THE PLANTATION VOCABULARY തോട്ടം plantation, estate · എസ്റ്റേറ്റ് the English word, universally used തൊഴിലാളി worker · തോട്ടം തൊഴിലാളി plantation worker കൊളുന്ത് the tender tea leaf — two leaves and a bud · പറിക്കുക to pluck ഫാക്ടറി the processing factory ലയം the layam, the plantation labour lines — rows of small quarters where workers live കങ്കാണി the kangany, the historical labour recruiter and supervisor THE HISTORY, NOT A GENTLE ONE The plantations were cut out of high forest by British planters in the nineteenth century. The labour was not local: recruited, largely Tamil, brought up from the plains under the kangany system and settled in the layams. That produced a Tamil-speaking population resident in Kerala for four or five generations, living on estate land rather than owning it, with housing, clinic and school all provided by one employer. That single-employer architecture is why plantation labour is a separate body of law in India — and why, when an estate closes, workers lose not a job but a house, a clinic and a school. In 2015 the women tea workers of Munnar struck, organising independently of the established trade unions and refusing to let male union leaders speak for them. They called themselves Pembilai Orumai — women's unity. Kerala has the strongest organised labour tradition in India, and these women went on strike partly against their own unions. Both facts are true. So when you photograph the women plucking, understand what you are photographing: skilled, physically punishing, low-paid work with a colonial architecture that has never entirely gone away. Visit with your eyes open, buy from the estate, tip generously, and ask before photographing anybody. Always. Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.