Life & Death in Delhi

How can one be prepared for the extremes of India? I knew enough before I left to realise that this would be a powerful experience. That conceptual knowledge however couldn't prepare me for the visceral nature of this land.


Extreme poverty - people living in the dirt and eating from the trash on most streets. It is incomprehensible, a life of the harshest kind.

Density of population - morning noon and night, the streets are crowded and bustling with men, women, childeren...

dogs...


and cows. (They're so cute, but you're not supposed to touch as they are sacred - if only that were the case in the rest of the world.)


Opportunistic living - from the auto and bicycle rickshaw drivers (above), touts (salesmen), beggers, con artists...


...even the traffic seems imbued with an intensity that screems 'take it while you can, now or never!'


Despite, or perhaps due to the hardships of this place, there is the sense that the mystical, biological power of the universe is hard at work here. The creative force is whipping up a special brew - potent and diverse, powerful yet unfinished. India is the supercharged wildcard. Supreme success or catastrophic faliure, in either case, it wll be spectacular!