Bodies on Sale (Session III in Series- Fragments of Labor and Endurance)

On May 17, 2026, the Adhyayan Writing Community hosted its 30th Session 'Bodies on Sale' an intimate, reflective and curated session at Conflictorium, Raipur.

Name- Satpriya Kaur Mudhar

Role- Facilitator and Moderator

Email Id- satpriyakaurmudhar@gmail.com

WHAT: Session 3 of Adhyayan's series Fragments of Labour and Endurance, titled Bodies on Sale. Participants came with pre-written pieces of their own, prose, poetry, fragments, each carrying their own entry point into the theme. These were shared with the room, and the writing became the ground for an open discussion that moved across the lives of sex workers, sanitation workers, domestic laborers, performers, and other laboring bodies. The conversation held space for what the writing surfaced about exhaustion, visibility, survival, and what it means when the body itself becomes the site of work. Held at Conflictorium.

WHY: There are forms of labor where the body is never separate from the work, where survival depends not just on skill or time, but on the repeated availability of the body itself: its strength, appearance, touch, obedience, emotional endurance, silence. The session asked what happens when the body becomes inseparable from labor. How does labor reshape posture, routine, sleep, intimacy, self-perception? What happens when exhaustion becomes ordinary, when availability becomes survival, when the body is constantly negotiated, consumed, and rented in order to continue living?

There are forms of labor in which the body is never separate from the work.

Bodies on Sale, the third session in our series Fragments of Labour and Endurance, turned toward this — toward the lives of sex workers, sanitation workers, domestic laborers, performers, and other laboring bodies whose survival depends not just on skill or time, but on the repeated availability of the body itself. Its strength, appearance, touch, obedience, emotional endurance, silence.

Participants came with pieces of their own- prose, poetry, fragments, each carrying a different entry point into the theme. When shared with the room, the writing opened into conversation. We spoke about what happens when exhaustion becomes ordinary. When availability becomes survival. When the body is constantly negotiated, consumed, maintained, and rented in order to continue living.

The discussion did not resolve these questions. It was not meant to. It was meant to hold them, carefully, collectively, and with language that did not look away.

Bodies on Sale was held at Conflictorium, Museum of Conflict, a space that felt right for exactly this kind of reckoning.