Children in Jharia’s coal mines lose childhood to smoke, fire, and endless survival.

In the heart of Jharia, India — one of the country's largest coal-producing regions — life unfolds under a sky thick with smoke and over land scarred by fire. Known as "The Burning City, " this place has been ablaze for more than a century, its underground fires consuming both earth and air. And in this hostile landscape, children grow up not in classrooms, but in coalfields, where survival itself is their daily lesson.

Here, childhood is traded for survival. Instead of school bells, they hear the clang of pickaxes echoing through the mines. Instead of carrying books, they haul sacks of coal heavier than their own fragile bodies. These children breathe air laced with toxic fumes, walk barefoot over smoldering ground, and return to homes that could collapse into underground fire pits without warning. Clean drinking water is a luxury rarely within reach, while healthcare remains a distant dream.

The price they pay is not just in sweat, but in health and hope. Their small lungs — still tender and growing — already bear the scars of asthma, tuberculosis, and even cancer. The flames that never stop burning also consume their laughter, their dreams, and their chance at a future beyond survival.

Each photograph in this series is more than a glimpse into hardship; it is a haunting question posed to us all: How long will we allow childhood itself to burn for the sake of fuel?

This is not just Jharia's tragedy — it is a mirror held up to society's choices, a reminder that the cost of energy is often paid in lives far too young to carry its weight.