In honour of World Sight Day. I thought I’d publish a few of images to celebrate people having their sight restored. The surgeon, Doctor Rajendra Trishal is one of those unsung Indian doctors who work in very unglamorous surroundings but nevertheless change peoples lives by their work.

The last picture is not for the squeamish, so beware…

India - Ghaziabad - Doctor Rajendra Trishal is blessed by Palo Devi, whose cataracts the doctor removed the previous day.

India - Ghaziabad - Doctor Rajendra Trishal examines Rohatas Kale, 60, whose cataracts the doctor removed the previous day

India - Ghaziabad - Doctor Rajendra Trishal performs cataract surgery on a patient at the Ginni Modi Opthalmic Research Centre, Modinagar

This post is a little late as World Homeless Day was on Monday 10/10/11 and although several kind people (Laurence Watts, Justin Leighton, Panos and Duckrabbit) Tweeted some of my work but I was away and so missed the opportunity to write something.

The work here is from an ongoing piece about Delhi and it’s people – where some 100000 people just happen to be homeless. I’m always cautious these days about doing another story about the homeless – you know the nameless victims staring up at the camera but  the sheer scale of Delhi’s problem is so significant, so enormous it became inevitable. The work was an assignment from ActionAid (thanks to Laurence who believed in my proposal) and was made through the invaluable assistance of Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan from whom I must thank the wonderful Paramjeet Kaur and Prakash, my invaluable guide and I hope now, friend. I tried very hard to make work that showed people as individuals coping in very difficult circumstances but one that is surprisingly easy to fall into. Normal, ordinary people in difficult situations. These are just three of my current favourite images – you can see a larger set via my archive or the Panos site.

India - New Delhi - Patti Das and his child Khrisha on a piece of waste ground beneath a flyover near Okhla station. New Delhi, India.

India - New Delhi - A mother picks at her child's hair for fleas as a train passes behind them on a piece of waste ground where they live beneath a flyover near Okhla station. New Delhi, India

India - New Delhi - A homeless mother, hugged by her small child, cooks breakfast by the railway tracks where her family live. Okhla, New Delhi, India

“We are pleased to announce to Our People that on the advice of Our Ministers tendered after consultation with Our Governor-General in Council, We have decided upon the transfer of the seat of the Government of India from Calcutta to the ancient Capital Delhi….” (Quoted in New Delhi Making of a Capital, Malvika Singh and Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Roli Books, 2009)

With that on 12 December 1911, George V sealed Calcutta’s fate as British India’s capital city. Delhi, itself a city of seven (perhaps more) kingdoms became the new political centre of India.

Today, a forgotten, dusty patch of land is all that remains of the Delhi Durbar site; an obelisk marking the spot where George made his speech, Ozymandias like now in its echo. Most Delhi-wallahs know nothing about it, nor the park adjacent which holds statues of Imperial notables and a likeness of the King himself that, until the 1960s, stood beneath a Chhatri next to India Gate.

I first visited the place in 2005 and found, with some difficulty, a silent park off a minor road next to the main highway. Last week, in search of story about New Delhi’s first century as capital I drove out again only to find the place in ruins. Much to my and my taxi driver’s amazement the place was being demolished by hand by day labourers. It seemed to me that some of the statues had gone or were at least moved (although I cannot confirm if this is true or indeed how many) and certainly some of the plinths had been destroyed.

I am by no means a fan or apologist for the Raj – indeed as I’ve written before I hold very little truck with romantic India but I was  dismayed that such a crucial piece of India’s history looked so … desolate. I haven’t had chance to ascertain exactly what the plans for this remote graveyard of empire might be but I sincerely hope that they are, as the foreman told me, to restore the place. If true, it is, like the Commonwealth Games building saga, a very furiously last minute – very Indian – job.

It could all of course be a dastardly case for Delhi’s detective extraordinaire, Vish Puri…

The first image was taken in 2005 – the rest are as I found the site last week:

India - Delhi - Statues of British Imperial notables, with Lord Hardinge, Viceroy Of India (1911-1916) to the right at the Coronation Park next to the site of the Delhi Durbar of 1911

India - Delhi - Commemorative obelisk at the Coronation Park marking the throne of George V during the Delhi Durbar of 1911

India - Delhi - Commemoration Plaque below the Obelisk that gives the date of the Delhi Durbar of 1911

India - Delhi - Statue of Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson at the Coronation Park next to the site of the Delhi Durbar of 1911

India - Delhi - Women construction workers demolishing the Coronation Park next to the site of the Delhi Durbar of 1911

India - Delhi - Security guards watched over by the statue of George V next to the site of the Delhi Durbar of 1911

Finally, the Chhatri that originally housed the statue of George V in the shadow of India Gate -

India - New Delhi - The empty canopy next to India Gate that originally held the statue of George V

No – not some mediaeval torture method but a proposal that after years of delay, the Chadni Chowk redevelopment plan will finally get under way under the auspices of the Shahjahanabad Corporation. Many Delhi residents will of course be skeptical that this will prove to be the success its champions claim. However, if it means preserving at least something of the faded and broken beauty of the Walled City then I wish it very, very good luck. My only concern is that this is not some run-down inner city in the West being gentrified: it’s a vibrant and working area where thousands and thousands of people make a living. The imperative to preserve its heritage, whilst obviously critical, should be tempered at least by a consideration for those that call Old Delhi home. Although I suspect one can guess how that will turn out…

India - Delhi - Heavy traffic on the congested streets of Old Delhi looking towards the Jama Masjid, Delhi, India

India - Delhi - Traffic on Chadni Chowk looking towards the Red Fort, Old Delhi

India - Delhi - A man lounges inside the remains of the Sultan Singh Ghar ki Haveli. Much of Old Delhi's historical architecture has been lost to new development.

According to Hindu tradition, widows are a curse. Many are dumped by their families in a dusty north Indian town called Vrindavan, supposedly the birthplace of Khrishna. Here the widows sing and chant for long periods of the day in ashrams where they are paid small amounts of money – the only employment open to them.

India - Vrindavan - Hari Das, 60. A widow abandoned by her family she lives in a small hut along with 40 others women in a slum on the outskirts of Vrindavan. Ostracized by society, thousands of India's widows flock to, or are forcibly dumped in the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die and receive a meagre pittance of food and money by chanting in ashrams

India - Vrindavan - Widows chant in an ashram for a meagre allowance of money

India - Vrindavan - A Widow chants in an ashram for a meagre allowance of money

I am woken every morning at dawn by the sounds of men breaking down buildings by hand. New Delhi, because of its absurd land prices is constantly being broken and rebuilt again by thousands of unskilled labourers working for a pittance. All day, every day.

This is the view of the house opposite. A view into other lives, other rooms.

India - New Delhi - Men construct a new house room by room

A nice spread in this month’s Silkwinds Magazine (in flight magazine for SilkAir)with my story on the Idol Makers story I shot last year.

Some good news from Pakistan. The BBC reported today on the success of Sachal Orchestra in Lahore that is thriving by reinterpreting classic jazz standards – like Brubeck’s Take Five – and giving them a South Asian twist. Pakistani musicians have seen their livelihoods collapse in recent years: musical tastes, instability and a growth of religious criticism have all impacted on them.

Their Indian cousins have also to a lesser extent seen their craft disappear and it’s from them that I find a picture in my archive taken on an Old Delhi roof.

India - Delhi - Traditional musicians play on a roof top in Chandni Mahal, Old Delhi, India. Once patronised by the Mughal rulers many now scrape a living playing weddings and social functions. Violinist Afzaal Zahoor leads Zeeshan Ahmad, a singer, Shankat Qureshi (tabla) and Shakeel Ahmad (Harmonia).

The Hindustan Times has reported that the Indian Coffee House in New Delhi, my favourite haunt for a dozen or more years, will now finally close because of unpaid rent. According to the ‘paper, “…the civic agency has finally told them to vacate the premises by the end of the month.” Pratap Singh, manager of Indian Coffee House is quoted as saying “We owe them nearly Rs 55 lakh as rent and interest apart from the monthly rent. We don’t have so much of money as our sales have dipped over a period of time.”

I first wrote about the Coffee House on this blog in June 2009 when I compared it to the great post-war classic cafes in London. Only last month Effillee magazine in Germany published a spread of my work shot over two years in the place. In that piece I tried to explain how I felt that the Coffee House was a kind of critical aide-memoire to Post Independence Delhi. I said that:

The Indian Coffee House is buried deep in the collective memory of Delhi. Perhaps never as flamboyant as its cousins in Calcutta on Bankim Chatterjee Street and Chittaranjan Avenue where Satyajit Ray et al held court, its presence is like a reincarnating deity. Stuck on a corner of one of the radials of the Colonial city, seen from above it is like a spur, preventing the wheel of Connaught Place fully turning and making itself into a Western High Street. It locks down an older geometry like a portal to the past. It will not let Delhi, always a city of trauma (from the destruction of Old Delhi to the Sikh riots of 1984) forget itself. Delhi is a palimpsest of cities (seven, eight, nine?) and if you look carefully the past is barely below the surface.

I am sad that a place that I cherished so dearly will close but sadder – and more concerned for the staff – cut adrift in a cruel city that has no time for the poor and those down on their luck. I am also sad because the Coffee House with a little imagination could  have worked. Malvika Singh, that most extraordinary of Delhi-wallahs (and publisher of Seminar) who I interviewed for the Effillee piece argued, quite simply that with a little imagination (and a bit of a paint-job) someone could turn the place into something special and profitable whilst preserving the character of the place. Only last week I ate in Dishoom – a very good pastiche of a Mumbai street cafe in London. Someone recognised that people will pay good money to eat somewhere that is not an Americanised chain selling plastic, mediocre food and expensive coffee. Someone obviously realised that people might want to spend time in places like this that have at least a stab at a cultural resonance…

The loss I think will be keenly felt – the last time they tried to close the cafe there was a minor public outcry. I can only hope that this will happen again and someone will step into the breach. I suspect however, that, as the unnamed official in the Hindustan Times piece salivated, “Once they vacate we will start the procedure of renting it out and we are hoping to get a rent at a rate of at least R400 per sq ft”, this really will be the end. The shame is of course that the coffee shop’s closing is a metaphor for what India and Delhi in particular, is running headlong into: a mishmash of Market-led, corporate half-truths that will be the disaster that this short term, only-for-profit thinking has brought all across the world. Delhi doesn’t need another fake Western, air conditioned soulless hang-out that caters for the tiny minority that can afford to eat there living out some 1980′s fantasy of wealth. It has plenty of those already.

The plain truth is that the closure marks the victory for an imported mindset that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

India - New Delhi - The door to the Indian Coffee House

India - New Delhi - A stained, wet table in the Indian Coffee House

India - New Delhi - A waiter's rag in a pool of late afternoon sunlight

India - New Delhi - Mr Baldev Kumar, smoking in the afternoon in the Indian Coffee House

India - New Delhi - A man reads his morning newspaper on the terrace of the Indian Coffee House

A few weeks ago, Priya Thomas who runs the rather excellent Shivers up the Spine blog got in touch because she was running a piece about the pioneering choreographer Richard Tremblay and his training in Kathakali. In the 1970′s he attended the Kerala Kalamandalam which I photographed (and wrote about) for a magazine a few years ago.

In a fascinating piece, she profiles Tremblay and explores his cross-cultural approach. I was happy to give Priya permission to run some images and publish my piece Into the Dreams of Heroes in its entirety. You can see the main article here and my piece here.

My edit of the story can be found on my site here

A good collaboration.