1. Grayscale in Genève

2.  Not a Scooter Pie

3.  The Quay, Genève

4.  The Flag of Nations

5. Ducks

6.  The Maple Leaf

7.   Yellow Submarine

8.   Pensive

9.  Lake Geneva

10.  Space Invader!

Shot from the train. The dirty windows gave this a rustic look.

Okay okay I don’t really own a Lomography camera. But I have modified my photos enough to make it look that way.

This is inside a house in a village in Rajasthan, one of the poorest state of India. The sunlight is striped because a part of the ceiling is made of metal rods. The containers seen are called “ghadas” and they keep water clean and cool.

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The girl above (and the two old women) are members of the so-called “untouchable”  community of India. ‘Dalits’ is now the politically correct term. Generations of dalits have been raped, killed, burnt and discriminated against because of the ugly caste system. Of course, caste discrimination is illegal by the law books of India, and over the years, progress has been made. We have had a dalit President (although I might add that in India, the post is only ceremonial), a dalit Chief Justice, a dalit Speaker of the House, and several dalit public figures, including Ambedkar, the Father of the Indian Constitution.

This doesn’t mean that dalits are no longer discriminated against; not by a long shot. But in this case, that of the girl above, the future is bright. She goes to school and is in the 9th grade and manages to score a very good 75% in her exams. She will get to work, being the only child to her liberal parents. She is well informed of the happenings of India and the world even, given she reads newspapers everyday (on the other hand, her parents are illiterate). She also claims that untouchability is something she has never had to face in her life.

I passed this road several times across a few days in rural Rajasthan in India. This man was always here, observing people and animals go by, catching a nap in between, and at times playing cards with his pals.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster! Blessed am I to experience His Noodly Appendage.

A man dressed as Hanuman, a Hindu “Monkey God” takes a break from street performances to catch up on the latest happenings around the region.

A house in a village in one of the poorest states of India – Rajasthan. Guess what the walls are made of? I’ll buy you a beer if you can guess correctly.

Tip: There’s another reason Hindus don’t eat beef.

Water, which is scarce in this part of India (in Rajasthan) is stored in large clay containers (called ghadas) to keep the water fresh and cool.

I saw this in a market in a village. This one is public. It is sustained by a few shop-keepers for all to have.

Notice the swastikas on the supports of the slab? It is a vedic symbol and has nothing to do with the Nazis.

Water, which is scarce in this part of India (in Rajasthan) is stored in large clay containers (called ghadas) to keep the water fresh and cool.

Seen here is a kitchen behind a textured wall where the ghadas lie on a slab.

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Doors and passageways in rural Rajasthan, India, are very artsy and almost stuck in time. Such anachronistic work can be seen  even in modern buildings.

When I took this photo, I didn’t realize there is something wrong with the cow.  I have been used to watching cows all the time in rural Rajasthan, in Western India. Rajasthan is a very dry state and is the location of the Thar desert, which is India’s largest. When I put it up on Facebook, an American friend of mine commented, “sad!”. It was only then that it struck me that this cow is impoverished! It is lifeless due to the lack of water and green grass. I was so very used to looking at such cows since I was very young, that somewhere subconsciously such a sight got registered as being  normal.

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These were taken in Rajasthan, India. Do excuse the frame and alignment of the photographs: they were taken from a moving car. These rocks have been shaped by the winds over the past millions of years (while I cannot say for certain that it was the wind, no other explanation fits. Water movement creates very different patters, and besides, this region was not underwater even when Deccan India was separate form the rest of Asia.)

This is the photo of a statue of an old tribes-man from Rajasthan, in Western India. It’s made of clay by Mr. Prajapati.

Interesting Fact: Mr. Prajapati made an exactly similar clay bust in front of Bill Clinton (yes, the former POTUS) in ten minutes flat and gifted it to him. It happened on his official trip to India when he was still president.

(c) Siddharth Singh, 2009.

Graffiti on Delhi’s facade are now becoming more common as underground artists take to the streets. This one is on a wall on the back alleys of Khan Market in New Delhi, India.  Khan Market is named after Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, also known as Frontier Gandhi, and the market is the costliest in India (in terms of land rent). It was originally inhabited by refugees who left Pakistan to come to India at the time of The Partition.