India Insight

I don’t know if the smartphone-toting Indian of the shopping malls still frequents festival melas. As for me, I can’t help but feel drawn to these vibrant mass gatherings during festivals.

Here, a spinning wheel juts out of a busy crossing in west Delhi. I spent a lot of time shooting it and finally settled on this image:

I am an ardent fan of jalebis and there’s hardly a month in my office that goes by without us feasting on them. I was tempted to grab these freshly cooked jalebis, but then I was in no mood to nurse a case of Delhi belly.

Considering Dussehra is next week, it wasn’t a surprise that the crowd at this maidan was thin. Ticket collectors were sitting idle and so was a hawker.

But just when I was looking to capture something interesting, a hijra jumped into my frame. And, she was more than happy to be photographed.

It was past 10 p.m. and I decided to drive to the nearest Durga puja pandals, which were under construction. This is the first picture I took:

And as I walked into the complex, here’s what I saw:

There was no panic, and it didn’t look like the organisers were racing against time, a typical Indian scenario. In the picture below, I tried to apply the rule of thirds by placing the rickshaw slightly off-centre.

As I walked ahead, one of the pandal workers was sitting next to a sewing machine. The halogens and the red colour in the background brightened the frame.

I leave you with an image of the temple where Goddess Durga will be placed. Have a festive year ahead!