GREY SHADES OF A GRAY WORLD

Cops trying to stop crazy televison journalists near the Indian Parliament just before the arrrival of the Prime Minister.

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TAVLEEN SINGHSeptember 2, 2009 at 2:20 PM
HA HA... Good
Nice one
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HUNGRY REPUBLIC OF INDIA

As booming India goes crazy over slimming centres, weight loss gadgets and obesity-curing wonders ... the future of the country stays hungry and malnourished, helplessly looking at the present for help as it dies everyday... One-year-old Harinder, who is suffering from severe malnutrition cries in his mother's lap. © Danish Siddiqui Foundation Finally, I get down to updating my blog, which has been lying stale for a few weeks now…This is a very special story to me… A few weeks back I packed my bags again and traveled into the interiors of the country with my Chief Photographer Reinhard Krause. The intention was to look for stories that stay neglected by the media; stories that don’t get the ‘numbers’ because the audiences responsible for the latter, are too busy with their own lives to bother about such matters. These stories, however, give me the strength and confidence to pursue many more such subjects relentlessly. For our latest excursion, Reinhard and I ...

Humanity floods Ganga

That day was finally here. After reading about it in the papers and watching images of it on television since childhood, I was there myself. It was the start of the Maha Kumbh Mela. A unique congregation of humanity had converged on the holy city of Haridwar. As I stepped into the town, I could already sense the special status given to it in Hindu mythology. Right from the railway station to the Ghats, there was only one color...orange. On the Ghats, one thing that I saw immediately and which didn’t surprise me at all was the image of a mother treating her children equally; whether they be rich or poor, fair or dark, boy or girl, Ganga Maiyya (Mother Ganga) had stretched out her arms for all. You know that when you immerse yourself in the waters, it is like crying and seeking comfort in your mother's lap. You want her to forgive you for your sins and she being a mother, she does so without questioning. ...

Unblessed on Earth but Connected to Heaven

This post is very close to my heart as I travelled to the 'Other India' to shoot this. I stayed with one of these families for a couple of days to understand how to 'survive' when you have been branded as a witch due to various reasons. My focus was on children of these so-called witches who aren't directly in the line of fire but carry the burden of humiliation nonetheless...sometimes for their entire lives...here are a few stories of these unblessed children. It has been 10 years, but 150 km away from that fateful day, Mani is still trapped. Her mother was branded as a witch and hacked to death by her own son (Mani’s brother). Mani wants to smile again, but being a ‘witch’s daughter’ isn’t easy. Pappu’s eyes betray his close encounter with death. His mother was killed by his relatives for “consuming his father” . Pappu’s occasional smile is a reminder of the lost innocent. Abandoned by all, 12 year Pappu only wants some friends to play and go to schoo...

India's very own 'AVATAR'

Last week I travelled to a remote place in India called Lanjigarh, which is located in the state of Orissa. It was a trip I'd been looking forward to for a few months. I am sure you'd have heard/read of how mining, sometimes illegal, is destroying the remaining forest cover in India and displacing tribal communities living in these forests for hundreds of years. This is a story of one such primitive tribe called the Dongria Kondh that lives in Orissa's Niyamgiri Mountains , which are part of India ’s Eastern Ghats range. These tribals have been fighting a nine-year long battle for survival against British mining giant Vedanta Resources, incidentally owned by an NRI (non-resident Indian). The story is simple yet complicated. Vedanta wants to mine the bauxite (raw material for making aluminium) in the Niyamgiri Mountains , which are worshipped as God by 8,000+ tribals that reside here and have never known any other home. These tribals, like any ...

Lucky by Chance

As the the temperature in Delhi dips to an all-time low and all we fortunates tuck ourselves in the warmth of our quilts and blankets at home ...there are more than 1,00,000 homeless people who survive these chilly and harsh winters by luck and some goodwill on part of a few kind-hearted ... There are 31 night shelters in Delhi constructed by the government and managed by a couple of NGOs. The average capacity of these shelters is 250 people, which means only 7750 lucky souls can find roofs to sleep under. Nobody knows what happens to the rest. .. Many of them die due to the chill ... their deaths go unnoticed as they are unknown or don't exist in the statistical charts of the national capital of India. Last night, I visited around 5 night shelters across the city, both permanent and temporary. A lucky soul at one of these night shelters told me: "Jo aaj andar hai kal woh bahar ho sakhta hai...aur parso upar ho sakhta hai..." (Anyone who is ins...

An EYE for an EYE

Mahatma Gandhi famously said: "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind". But even he'd be proud to note that that may not be the case always ... like in Madurai . In this temple town, the eyes of a few good people are giving vision to those who have been deprived from seeing the beautiful colors of the world. An organization called Aravind Eye Care System (which I am sure most would'nt have heard of) has been providing free eye care to the poor in rural India where otherwise even basic medical facilities are hard to come by. Headquartered in Madurai , the Aravind Hospital draws visitors from all over the state of Tamil Nadu. With the support of its benefactors, it has treated 29 million patients so far. It is a less-known statistic but India is home to 25% of the world’s blind. Every year at least 4 million Indians develop cataract that is a major cause for blindness ...

Faith over Pain

The ten-day Muharram mourning ceremony reaches its climax on the last day which is called Ashura. Ashura marks the Remembrance of Muharram when Shia Muslims commemorate the slaying of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein ibn Ali in 680 AD in the Battle of Karbala. For the Shias, Hussein's death symbolizes confronting tyranny in the face of overwhelming odds. It is also a reminder of the rift with Sunnis (who do not revere Hussein as Shias do) over the Prophet Mohammad's succession. During the ceremony, the Shias beat their heads and chests and make gashes across bodies with swords to show their grief and echo the suffering of Imam Hussein. \ Due to clashes between Sunnis and Shias over the ritual most of the big citites have banned the large procession. This year, I went to Amroha, a small, sleepy town in Western Uttar Pradesh to shoot the real zeal of Ashura as Amroha has a large Shia population and there is no ban on the procession here. ...

Meri jaan...Mera laal

After a long time I was again on the road..roaming around on the streets searching for stories and taking photographs. On a dingy lane just opposite a mosque in Old Delhi I saw this old woman who was holding the window of a dargah . I slowly went behind her and whispered in her ear " Amma...kya chahiye khuda se?" (mother...what do you want from God?) and she replied "meri jaan...mera laal" (my life...my son). She told she has been coming to this dargah everyday for the past 13 years to pray that her son comes back home. Her son went missing when he was just a 12 year old kid. On an average, over 40,000 children in India are reported missing every year, of which 11,000 remain untraced. Nobody knows where they go. There are thousands of mothers like her waiting for their children to come back home one day. © Danish Siddiqui Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

OH, MY POOR FARMER…WHY WERE YOU BORN??

Intensification of droughts, floods and cyclones is one of the predictable impacts of climate change and climate instability. The failure of monsoons in India and the consequent droughts have impacted two-thirds of India, especially the bread basket of the country’s fertile Gangetic plains. The monsoons recharge the groundwater and surface water systems. This year, because of droughts there will be reduced recharge. The India Prime Minister will leave for Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in a few days amidst the controversial voluntary cuts by India in carbon emissions. It seems India has been again bended under US pressure. We, the people of third world countries, are paying the price for break-neck industrialisation by developed countries like the US. The Indian farmer is again the first one to face the brunt of climate change. Here is one such story from a small village called Pi on the Rajasthan border. Ramlaal...a small farmer who depends on the monsoons for the irrigation...

1 city...11 faces

I have tried to capture the different moods of 11 different people(including an animal) while they were being photographed knowingly or unknowingly in the holy city of Varanasi(also known as Banaras and Kashi). I am sorry for not posting any photographs of ghats and other rituals which this city is known for as this post is just about its people. © Danish Siddiqui Foundation. All Rights Reserved.