shanti dan.

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

view from an auto rickshaw

[shantidan]

arriving.

i won't lie, arriving at sun down, hard rain falling ( thanks monsoon)--i was absolutely dumbfounded, with no clue whatsoever as to what i was getting myself into. finding my red turbaned-aladdin-suited Bengali driver, we began the drive into the heart of kolkata. i felt as though everything we drove past was not real, but that i was disillusioned from exhaustion (+30 something hour travel time)...I cannot even begin to describe all that i saw--- i felt as if i was no longer looking through my own eyes, but that of a child. the poverty surrounding me, i cannot, could not comprehend it- why or how human beings could be subjected to such living. coming from being born & raised in America, which to my honest opinion i believe is a country of complete excess- technology, food, BUT to see how these people live, i just couldn't understand it. I asked a friend to describe India to me, and she used one word : intense, and that's exactly what it is- it is completely overwhelming to each and every one of your senses. 

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

[shantidan]

the smells, surroundings, language everything feels foreign but i already love it. I saw my first glance of slums at the airport of Bombay, it was like nothing i have ever seen before, it was almost as if they were spilling onto the fences of the airport. What confuses me most, is to whether those in poverty choose to live this way.....

is this all they know?

[shantidan]

first glance of kolkata from the plane.