Weeks 8 & 9: India

I spent the last two weeks on a business trip to India and the experience was almost life changing. The sights and sounds of India – combined with the contradictions that make India what it is – threaten to overwhelm your senses and sensibility but instead seem to envelop you in some kind of exotic wrap.

I spent the first week in Noida, just outside of Delhi and got to spend Saturday itself in Delhi. This picture is from the Red Fort and attempts to contrast the old while looking through to the new. I tried to capture the spirit of Old Delhi, perhaps with a western sensibility. There is a definite “something” about Old Delhi that is at once timeless and “off the day”.

As I was there for two weeks I have also included a second picture, this time from Mumbai, the second city I visited. I did not manage to get out and about very much in Mumbai as I was attending and speaking at a conference. However, I did manage to get this shot of one of the many impromptu “shanty towns” that seem to appear almost anywhere. This one was on the beach that lay about 100 meters from the hotel where I staying, paying $300 per night while the folk who lived in this shanty town probably do not earn that in a month.

As to the traffic... well, that is another story, as told here.