Travelling in the states in the height of election fever had its advantages. Through a series of fortunate incidents I found myself in Times Square, New York City, on the November 4, 2008, when the results were being announced. People turned out in droves and I got to capture some tense moments of anticipation and eventually some truly joyous reactions when Barrack Obama was elected the 44th President of the USA. 19 Photos Shot on assignment for Greenpeace, this was a rare chance to meet people literally living in the shadows of some of Karnataka's largest Hydro Electric Projects at the Kadra and Supa Dams. Walks through fields, endless drives across the Uttara Kannada District in Karnataka, and night treks to fringe forest hamlets revealed a uniform lack of electricity throughout the region. Without it, there is no power for light, heat and most importantly, for the smooth running of the farm with pumps and agrarian machines of every ilk from threshing to incubation to sprinkling. Farmers are forced to do everything by hand, unable to even do a simple seed sorting exercise due to the lack of light. Kerosene lamps provide a temporary source of light. To buy kerosene, they have to walk all the way to the ration shop and lug it back all the way to their homes.
The situation gets even more gut wrenching when you hear that they have to trek five kms each way just to access electricity to charge their mobile phones. Mobile phones provide them with the chance to have bi-weekly conversations with their children, who've been sent to the bigger towns to stay with distant relatives so that they may grow up and study with the marvel of electricity. With the pittance they eke, they are barely able to see their kids more than thrice a year if they're lucky. Multiply these circumstances into the dozens of families spread across one home hamlets dotting the dense jungle hills, and you wonder why the Hydro Electric Project can't provide electricity to people a few kms away while transmitting tons and tons of megawatts across the state. An essay within an essay is the story of the people of Ramnagar, who've been shifted en masse from a large town the size of Sirsi so that it could be submerged by the Sana Reservoir and Dam. Here they gamely motor on despite a lack of land and livelihood.
30 Photos Imagine having a full blown party on the streets of your city right outside your Supreme Court. All along the streets circumventing the Civic Center Park, adjoining San Fransisco City Hall and Supreme Court, over two dozen mammoth party floats had been set up for the annual Love Festival. DJs are spinning, and themes in the parade range from Military to a psychedelic Hippie bus all the way from the 60s. All kinds of electronic music vibrates in a Monet-painting-like blur, making sense to those who could step back. Way back. Jump from sound bubble to sound bubble, beat to beat. The only thing that is common in every little party bubble? The dancing, of course. Thousands and thousands of capering and flouncing, bounding and gyrating people in various stages and eras of dress and undress. Drag queens draped in colours aplenty waltzing down the alley way. Pills a-popping, blots a-dropping, doobies a-blazing. All the while, policemen stand with bemused expressions on the sidelines. One shrugs at the other, "hey, they're just having a good time." 18 Photos The second Gay Pride March in Bangalore, South India, was a roaring riot of colour, love and an identity that is slowly gathering momentum all over the country. Just As interesting, from a photojournalistic perspective, were the onlookers, gawking, gaping, furtively glancing and gathering in numbers to form a chaotic guard of honour for the marching LBGT community. 21 Photos "It was a terrible time," says my dear Darjeeling buddy, Ujwal, the memory of the Gorkhaland riots of the late 1980s etched in his mind as clearly as the air in the hills. And it was. The official death toll was put at 1200, and many times that number was injured. It's hard to imagine such a time, as I gaze out at a zen-like tea garden, in a Darjeeling I've swiftly and surely begun to love.
Twenty years ago, under the leadership of Subash Ghishing, the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) terrorised the hills in demand for a separate state for the Gorkhas. The wonderful art of negotiation allowed the GNLF, (innocuously renamed the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council), to have a free run, in exchange for dropping the Gorkhaland ideal. But corruption and atrocities can only be ignored for so long. In 2007, Ghishing was run out of the hills and a new party, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) was formed under the leadership of the Bimal Gurung. They resurrected the ghost of Gorkhaland and are now demanding a state comprising Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong, a few other regions in the hills and Siliguri. Of these, the last has proved to be a thorn in the side for the West Bengal government. As a gateway (albeit a city of squalor) to the whole of the North East of India, Siliguri has the enviable job of collecting a tax and toll from every truck, train or aircraft bearing cargo to and from the region. There's the catch. Even if the West Bengal government was prepared to relinquish control of the hills, mainly prided for tea and tourism, giving up Siliguri would be too big a bitter pill to swallow.That hasn't stopped the GJM, and as I lay languishing in the sweet pre-monsoon of Darjeeling, the chants rent the air, already thick with fog. The looping, almost musical, Nepali and English cries of thousands of Gorkhas demanding their identity. I'm looked on with curiosity as every other tourist has flown from the intermittent strikes and constant peaceful protests. Whether they are adequately equipped to handle their own affairs is left to a time when they will be given the key. Until then, like my many friends in Darjeeling keep saying, we can only wait and watch. 11 Photos New Yorkers only put aside their sonic speed lives on rare occasions. The yearly Halloween Parade on 6th Avenue is one of those occasions in a giant carnival of
puppets, vampires, witches and Elton
John look-alikes. 14 Photos Other than the endless hills and forests, an alternative draw in the North East of Andhra Pradesh, in one horse town of Tyda, is the railway station. The stations in and around Darjeeling and Shimla, with their little snail paced toy trains are charming, but this was the real thing. Here runs a broad gauge railway line at 1500 feet, higher than anywhere else in our impressive Indian railways. And in the middle of a veritable jungle. It was love at first track. Outnumbering some nearby tribal settlements, the largest concentration of humans here is the railway community, from Andhra and mainly across the border from Orissa. They live in their humble but quirky quarters adjoining the stations and lead a fascinating, even enviable life. Older folk have lived here for decades and smile quietly at the stability that a life in the railways has given them. The youngsters don’t think so, yearning for the multiplex-mall lifestyle so glorified in most movies. No hot girls waltzing by in minis, no superbikes whizzing around the corner, not even a movie theatre in a 50 km radius. With all its isolation, Tyda still manages to illustrate the universal antediluvian gap between generations. 15 Photos You make the most of summer in Chicago. Even our most extreme climates here in India don't compare to the winter minimums of -20°C and the wind chill factor of -50°C with the blizzards of course.So the summer's the best time to have an airshow by Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago.I land up and am gob smacked by the 10s of thousands of people who've gotten there before us. Parents, couples, kids, picnic baskets, tents, fold-able chairs, barbecues, umbrellas, cameras, corporate promotions, protesters, army recruiters, teens, toys, world war vets - they're all there in complete sun worshipping attire add to aeroplanes from four generations roaring around.
14 Photos Every September on the Autumnal Equinox, at the end of the harvest season, the Chinese give thanks for the produce received. The resplendent dragons of old consent to come down to earth, tamed by the young men and women of Chinese communities all over the world in a glorious celebratory dance through the streets, waved on by the king and queen of the Moon Festival. China Town, San Francisco has had its own celebrations through the slopey San Fran streets for a couple of decades. 10 Photos On my way to the Nagaur Fort in Rajasthan, there was a large cloud of dust, meaning only two things in the mostly still desert. A dust storm or an exodus. It turned out to be an exodus, but joining the humans and their monster trucks were cud chewing cows, milky white Arabian looking horses, listless buffaloes, and loads of haughty camels. Every year in January or February, for eight days, anywhere between 20,000- 100,000 of them are brought by almost a thousand traders to the vast desert just outside Nagaur. The fair offers a less beaten track for those seeking authenticity, less tourist eyes, and people untouched by the trappings of a well known tourist hotspot. Mini-temporary encampments had mushroomed up everywhere. There was a spirit of camaraderie as well. This was a expo, picnic, and excursion all rolled into one nice thick, spicy, aloo ki paronti. 9 Photos On the outskirts of Bangalore is a campus misleadingly titled, "The Indira Gandhi International School." All the kids here are orphans or abandoned, mostly comprising Sri Lankan refugees rendered homeless by the tsunami or constant fighting between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army.
"The government refuses to acknowledge that these refugees could become Indian citizens and thus be able to earn a living. And there are people who have come here over 2 decades ago and still struggle with the meagre government handouts," says Renu Mukunda, who heads the administration of the IGIA, hardly an easy job. The buildings are decrepit, you have to struggle to find any paint left. The classrooms, bubbling with youthful exuberance, are dingy at best. The children, age 4 upwards, all contribute to the upkeep, wash their own clothes, and help the younger ones through their baths and grooming. This when they aren't playing football or cricket, barefoot, with reckless abandon. In fact, the large brown playing field is the only place when they look like any other children, lost in their games. The dormitories are stuffed to the brim and yet more children keep arriving from the refugee camps. The only thing that separates the splinters of their bunk beds from skin are thin mats; mattresses are an expense they can ill afford.
Other than a few in-house teachers and a matron, who came here as a refugee 15 years earlier, Renu tries desperately to source teachers. When I visited, there were two gentlemen who work at huge corporations, who volunteer time on weekends and holidays to teach the older kids physics and maths. Apparently there are others like them who would rather nurse a budding intellect than a hangover. There are also doctors and medical students who come in and do free check ups and consultations, constantly striving to counteract the scabies epidemic that rears its ugly head every time a new batch arrives from the even more dismal conditions at the refugee camps. The most endearing of these volunteers would have to be bearded Babu and his band of barbers. On the terrace of one of the buildings they had set up shop, scissors shimmering, as they went clip, clip, clip through a variety of mops, long and short, curly and straight. All for free. Babu explains, "I'm a barber by profession but I like to think of myself as a social worker." And so, he spends his holidays going from institute to NGO, armed with scissors and smiles. He wants to give "of himself" he says. If you've ever felt the same way, you can contribute to the IGIA, as a volunteer teacher, doctor, counsellor, administrator, advisor or anything else you can think of. I'm sure they desperately need financial assistance as well, so if you or your company would like to help out, don't think twice. IGIS Ph: 080-28563430 10 Photos
