Going home

I know it’s a cliché, but it seems like only yesterday that I came to live in Delhi. I will miss my work colleagues who have been very kind to me. I will miss the historical sites of the capital, that I have come to know so well. I will miss the food. I won’t…

Cricket

Delhi doesn’t have a decent cricket ground. I was very disappointed as I wanted to see a test match here in India during my mission. Perhaps it was just as well, because the English team did not perform well here at the end of 2016. The Indians drubbed them 4-0. Recently, the Australians won the…

Body building Boys

At Lodi Gardens on Sunday, in the Sheesh Gumbad (Glass Dome – named because of the shiny blue tiles) I met three boys playing football around the tombs. Well, someone has to do it, I suppose. They saw my camera hanging round my neck and insisted that I take their photographs. I couldn’t resist. They…

School Bus

School bus? I automatically think of South Park. Yellow classic vehicles. But not in Delhi. Here is a set of photographs of a cycle rickshaw arriving at the Central Baptist school on Chandni Chowk. It reminds me of the cage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This is number 17, so I presume that there are…

Walk in the Bazar

I should have known better. It was crowded, impatient people pushing and jostling. I took my phone out of my trouser pocket and put it in my knapsack, wearing it on my chest, not my back. I was able to zip away my wallet and keys safely. I checked again in five minutes and the…

Chawri Bazar

During the last days of the Mughals, in the early 19th century, Chawri Bazar was the Soho of Old Delhi. It was an area famous for courtesans and nautch girls – girls who danced so alluringly that their suggestive moves could reduce men to gibbering wrecks. Although the lanes were narrow, behind an unprepossessing facade…

Schools

Private schools are big business in India. They advertise their services aggressively. How about Glorious School, offering horse riding and skating? Or Goodley School with its PowerClass? Some schools show photographs of students who have scored highly in examinations. The best students are called “Toppers”. I am not sure that they actually attended the schools…

Hope for the Future

We work in one of the poorest areas of Delhi. The squalor and filth of the slums around the extensive rubbish tips have to be seen to be believed. Amidst all this horror, there are some shining lights of hope. This is a photograph taken in Adarsh Nagar Police Station House Officer’s office today. Inspector…

New ways for India to succeed at the Olympics

An Indian commentator in the press recently bemoaned the lack of success of the nation’s athletes in Rio. He suggested that howking and spitting were two things at which India excelled. True, the pavements and walls of Delhi are spattered with red spittle. This isn’t blood; it’s paan masala. This is a mixture of betel…

Raksha Bandhan

Did you fight like cat and dog with your siblings? If so, perhaps this Hindu festival might encourage you to bury the hatchet. Strictly speaking, it celebrates the bond of protection between brothers and sisters, but it can also apply to relationships outside the family. A sister ties a sacred thread, or “rakshi”, onto her…