A devote follower of Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipur, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy and the likes, I have read countless of fiction - sometimes twice or thrice - on India and have spent a great deal internalising the debates of non-fiction essays including the work of Amartya Sen for more than a decade.
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pace)(space)Despite having digested so much of the ink that has flowed, I was unprepared for the emotions and confusion I felt upon witnessing the caste divisions that are most bitterly experienced at India's grassroots. It was only in India that I realised no amount of prose or pictures can ever prepare a person for the scenes of the homeless he or she will witness firsthand in India. But more disturbing (for me at least) is the sheer existence (and population size) of the 'homeless' in the 21st Century.
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Determine to get to the bottom of this, after countless of discussions with my travel mates and a native Indian friend that proved unsatisfactory, I hastily grabbed books that are meant to assist me in my understanding of modern India:
Edward Luce's "In Spite of the Gods"
Shashi Tharoor's "the Elephant, the Tiger & the Cellphone"
Mira Kamdar's "Planet India"
Though I am yet to complete reading any of the three books; to date, they have all brilliantly given me some perspective on India and some depth of reasoning behind the otherwise cliche "India ~ the land of bewildering contrast" through their comprehensive research covering economics, politics, diplomacy, bureaucracy, religion and culture.
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As for my emotions and the relentless silent pounding of "why? why? why?" in my head, well, it is still there ... and perhaps time will heal.
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Photos taken by
Penelope Gan during the
2008 Photo Safari #1: "Incredible India"
January 2008
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Photo information:
(Top Right) opposite Agra Fort (Agra) ~ an elderly homeless lady checking to see if her capatis (flat bread) are still good for dinner in front of her home - made of some fly-sheets and stacking bricks.
(Above Left) in front of Red Fort (Delhi) ~ two middle aged homesless having just woken up (at approximately 11:30 am) and having a relaxed discussion at where appears to be their 'home', which is in the middle of Delhi dual carriage lane!
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5 comments:
yeah. so much so, india and the intouchables r synonymous. one just cannot run away from them in incredible india. their surviving skills is amazing!
I have just been told by my dearest friend, Vijay Pandey, that the term homeless is not synonymous with "untouchable" or Dalit, as the latter refers to a caste, not a condition.
I hereby apologise for being naive and having miscontrued the information passed down to me.
there was in fact an article featured in the NGM like a year or 2 ago..on the untouchables. i remember reading it, albeit was already droopping.
how many versions of untouchables' shacks did u manage to identify? lol.
what's "NGM"?
and your hotel reviews (the ones we lived in) have been posted. yup, lived like a Maharani!
yeah, i hv read it, yet to make a comment. great review man!!! i did an instant search on the bissau palace straight away which led me to another 30mins juz on the jodhpur trail...hehe.
NGM...national geographic magazine mar....
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