Three labourers

Outside along the road stand three men, as if posing for the drawer. On the left, sitting on a rock, is a man. He wears a loincloth (veshti, lungi) wrapped between his legs, pulled up above his knees, and over his back, shoulders, and left arm a second cloth (chadar) which leaves his right arm uncovered. The ends of this cloth lie on his lap. The man in the middle also wears a calf-length loincloth (veshti, lungi), and around his shoulders, back, and upper arms a shawl (chadar) whose end is tucked in at the waist. The upper body and both forearms are uncovered. In the raised left hand a straw is drawn: likely a toothpick (dath katuwa). The standing man on the right wears a knee-length loincloth draped in a Ceylonese manner. Above it, the hip-length shirt (kamisaya) with long turned-down sleeves. The two men on the left and in the middle are laborers from South India or Jaffna; the man on the right is possibly a laborer of Eurasian origin. Page 109 from a sketchbook with 117 pages.