Coastal homes in Chirala, Andhra Pradesh

Chirala is a weaving town that happens to be six kilometres from the sea, and the order of those two facts matters. Something like twelve thousand weavers from the Padmasali and Devanga communities work here on pit looms organised through cooperative societies, and the pit loom shapes the house around it: a front room with a trench cut into the floor for the weaver's legs, warp stretched the length of it, light from one long side, and the family living behind. The cotton saris, bedspreads and furnishing cloth that come off these looms travel considerably further than the town does. Vetapalem next door does the same work.

The coast is Vodarevu and Ramapuram, wide grey sand behind casuarina plantations, fishing hamlets rather than shacks, boats drawn up between runs. Houses out here are low, thick-walled and shaded, with palmyra rafters and a verandah turned to the onshore wind, because on this stretch of the Bay the wind is the only cooling on offer.