Manas Mohanty popped his bubble gum and reclined in the comfort of his air-conditioned SUV moving past laborers washing after a day of pounding iron ore in India’s eastern town Joda, Orissa. As the car approached another stretch of highway that resembled a pothole surrounded by tiny roads, rather than a major artery carrying about 15,000 trucks a day, he grabbed onto the passenger’s side handle in preparation for the bumpy ride.

“Here we go,” Mohanty said. “Heaven-Hell. Heaven-Hell. Heaven-Hell.”

The phrase mimicked the sensation of the car bouncing up into the heavens and down into hell as the driver navigated the maze of red-mud watery ditches. It was a joke describing the pathetic situation of the roads, which are the lifeline for numerous mining companies transporting iron ore to steel factories in other parts of the world.

'Heaven and Hell' doesn’t just describe the roads. It’s a description of the hellish life of the day laborers who are building the heaven that could be India’s future.

Orissa is one of those hot spot states of controversy that everyone kind of knows is not in the best of shape but a spot that's easy to ignore because it doesn't directly effect your life.

It's a state rich in minerals: iron ore, bauxite, aluminum. Steel companies see big dollar signs. Foreign and domestic companies have been in the region for decades. After India's economy opened up, the companies came in droves.Especially during the last four years. Yet it's also the most financially indebted state in India.

The problem is that the state is largely populated by tribal communities (adivasis) living off the forests and water. So as the companies come, the tribals lose their land and have no other choice but to take jobs working in the mines. Their culture disappears. Family structures breakdown. Children don't got to school and women lose their social status. Their only pleasure is getting drunk off the local rice beer. It's often their only food, too. The central and state governments thus far have offered no incentive for the companies to invest in the communities by building roads, schools or hospitals. So in Joda and towns all over Orissa — towns producing millions in revenues for multinational companies — there are slum packets instead of neighborhoods, traditional healers instead of hospitals, child laborers instead of students. India may be the world's backoffice, but Orissa is part of India's backoffice and to say the least, it ain't pretty.

This isn't a new phenomenon. It happened to Native Americans in the USA and Aboriginals in Australia. Some say it's the cost of economic development. Perhaps. Except that it seems like Orissa still operates in a colonial economy. The state made more money off of alcohol tax in 2004 than tax from the minerals. To boot, the minerals get shipped to China, which produces the steel and then China sells it back to India so another millionaire can build a mall.