Railway sadhu

oldman

A bridge at the Dharavi railway station

I’ve been talking to an Indian friend — shout out to Kali in New York — about poverty in India. Do we see it differently than we do poverty in America? Granted, I spent the final eight months of my Post-Dispatch career covering poverty in St. Louis, so perhaps I have different perspective. And I also spent my last week in Nairobi traveling through the slums there.

Our conversation inspired me to post a photo from my first solo trip to India, in 2002. Kali specifically remembered this photo.

I went looking for gripping, raw poverty and found it, in Dharavi, the sprawling Mumbai slum that later inspired Slumdog Millionaire. This was one of dozens of photos I shot that afternoon. The old man was sitting quietly on a railway bridge just on the edge of the slum.

God bless that Nikon F4 and 20mm lens.

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