India's professional ear cleaners still find work

Sheikh Mohammed, 25, is one of Bombay’s battalion of professional ear cleaners – a group easily identifiable by their pink or orange turbans.

For 10 rupees (12 pence), one can have one’s ears expertly probed by a man wielding a tiny swab of cotton wool on a fine wire rod.



The operation takes about ten minutes (its depends on how waxy your ears are, Mr Mohammed says) and is a common sight on city streets.

Mr Mohammed, the latest in a long line of ear cleaners, insists that trade “is very, very good ... all types of people like to have clean ears”.



He makes a respectable 300 rupees (£3.50) a day but he is sure that his sons will not carry on the business.

“They are in school. They are becoming educated”, he says. “Perhaps they will do an MBA”.