documentary

Love My Grandmother - Tuk Tuk Advert. New Delhi.

The train trip from Delhi to Jaipur was like watching an 8 hour movie. What an insight into life on the tracks. Life here is so difficult. The problems are so big it’s difficult to see how to solve them. Even a simple question like where do you put your rubbish? is a huge problem when you have 1.4 billion people.

Following the track-towns there were hundreds of miles of flat, yellow fields all producing vegetable oil.

These are a some vignettes I took en-route.

Team Work Makes the Dream Work - Defence Colony Wall, New Delhi.

Hello Delhi!!

It’s Winter now in Delhi and our visit began at a chilly 12 degrees rising to 20 after just a couple of days. So I guess that’s winter finished for us but not for the Delhi dogs, they are wrapped up in their lovely coats all donated by the locals.

It is wonderful to be back, to see new things and revisit a couple of favourites. This trip begins at the our 21st bed-stop in 2019 - C99 Defence Colony, New Delhi. So this is the beginning of a new travel experience which I hope to recreate in my blog.

A new area for us to visit was Harkesh Nagar Okhla. Here is the Sanjay Colony, the biggest of the many poverty colonies in Delhi.

We met a former resident who grew up in the colony and now works for a charitable organisation helping provide extra education to facilitate a way out for the youngsters. In the state school there are 100 pupils in each class. Girls in the morning, boys in the afternoon.

We visited the Charity’s school, here they teach English and Computers.

This colony has approximately 50,000 people living in different blocks, covering 25 acres - that’s about 18 football pitches. The Sanjay Colony is next to a textile industrial area so this makes it a better place to live as there is the chance of work close by. The women sort the shredded fabric remnants and earn the equivalent of £3 per 12hr day, the men work in the sewing factory and earn approximately £150 a month.

The work is harsh and unpleasant but it is work and it means food can be bought from the colony market at the end of each day.

The cows and goats belong to the colony to provide milk for the residents.

Understandably photography was NOT allowed in the Colony residential area. We met lots of families and were very humbled by our experience.

Living in such close proximity, we wondered what the effect of Covid had been on the community. It wasn’t so much the virus that was the problem it was the closing down of all the work. No work, no money, no food.

The government has put in free electricity and water standpipes which helps ease the pressures. The government owns the land so the threat of closure could happen at any time. You need to prove you have lived there for at least 25 years in order to get rehoused.

New trees have been planted in this area to provide shade for the future.

As the sun began to set we headed off. Making our way onto the Metro, this was our parting shot of the Sanjay Colony.