But there are many like Chithra in 'Kutty Japan (Little Japan),' as Sivakasi is called, where the fireworks business generates an annual business of around Rs 1,000 crore.

Karuppusamy, sits with members of his family in front of his hut, packing gun powder into cylindrical tubes. The camera pans to his face, grabbing the sight of his totally scarred and deformed face and hands. Does it hurt now, he is asked. "No," says 14-year-old Karupussamy, flexing his shriveled hands.

His father, Lingam, says that a small compensation was given. But the father was made to sign a statement which said the accident in which Karuppusamy was involved did not take place in the factory where he had worked earlier.

Muneeswari (13) has been working for the last two years in a match factory. Her little brother, barely eight years old, accompanies her. Her hands are coarse and have a yellow tinge. Nothing to do with 'maruthani' or henna. The camera next catches a factory worker showing cyanide powder being added in the gum preparation used to seal the match boxes with the blue-coloured paper.

"Just because the kids who work in the factories got into the habit of eating the paste when they were hungry, the factory owners began to add cyanide powder to the gum preparation. This stains every hand that works for this industry," says G Subramanian, executive director of Manitham, a human rights organisation, which helped the Korean company to shoot the film.

... contd.