@siddharthajoshi —
Siddhartha Joshi is a 34-year-old industrial designer whose project "Tell Me Your Dream" is revealing the hopes and aspirations of one person every day for a year. "Fifteen year-old Rajesh works as a Behrupiya (impersonator) in Pune, spending his entire day walking around and asking for money. Behrupiyas were fairly common a few decades back, but now they are the last few caretakers of this dying art. The impersonators visit social ceremonies to mimick someone and create commotion. If their disguise is successful they will get paid a baksheesh (tip), if they are recognised they get nothing."
Rajesh: "I dream of doing something more in life, not just do what I am doing right now. If given a choice, I would love to work in a hotel."
@siddharthajoshi —
"I want to leave what I do right now and do another, better work. Then I would like to get married and have kids." "Rajesh Gaikwad belongs to a nomadic tribe of Potraj, Maharashtra which worships a goddess called "Kadak Lakshmi". His profession is to travel and ask for alms, while continuously flagellating himself with a heavy, knotted rope, sometimes weighing as much as 10kg. In the evenings he works at a restaurant. Rajesh isn't sure about his age and has never been to school. He has been doing this all his life."
@siddharthajoshi —
"I dream of food to fill my stomach. That is all.""When Parabai Kadam was born, nine of her siblings had already died, so her parents offered her to the Amba devi (Hindu goddess). She was married to the devi at a very young age and became a devadasi (dedicated worshipper). Now she goes around all day in trains singing devi songs and asking for alms. Most generally ignore her presence. She has no family but other devadasis, who also beg for alms in trains."
@khannachandan —
Chandan Khanna is a professional photojournalist who enjoys the immediacy of using an iPhone and Instagram to share his photography. "Technological advancements have made photography accessible to everyone who owns a camera phone. I prefer that my photos look sharp and well exposed; and now with the amazing filters in digital cameras, I have the freedom of post-processing my pictures on-the-go."
Pictured, an Indian cycle rickshaw puller cooks dinner for himself at a roadside, in the temporary installed city of Magh Mela in #Allahabad.
@khannachandan —
"Bidi". A young Indian laborer sits in near darkness packing bidis (Indian cigarettes) in colorful conical packets and then into boxes at The New Sarkar Bidi Factory in Kannauj, some 200km south-east of New Delhi. "Around 70 million Indians smoke the hand-rolled bidis which are nimbly bound together by workers with khaki-coloured tendu leaves and cotton thread."
@khannachandan —
An Indian watchmaker uses an eye glass to fix up a wrist watch in the old quarters of #Delhi
@khannachandan —
An elderly Indian flower vendor spreads rose petals on the streets of city of #Kumbh #Allahabad
@ravimishraindia —
Ravi Mishra is a 25-year old fixer, producer and photographer from New Delhi. "What I like to share most is a mix of touching personal stories as well as the cultural side of India." Pictured, a Hindu widow poses with the bucket that she used to throw colored water whilst playing Holi with the other widows at their Ashram in "India's sacred city of widows", Vrindavan.
"In some parts of Indian culture, widows are seen as the cause of their husband's death and cast out by relatives. The segregation of widows can be so extreme that in some places they are prevented from attending celebrations, abandoned by their families and left to fend for themselves."
@ravimishraindia —
Young siblings try to make chutney for lunch at their home in Meerut, India.
@everydaymumbai —
Everyday Mumbai is a curated account that brings together the best of Mumbai's social photography. In this photo by @rohitpixel, a young boy jumps into a stream of water overflowing from the Mumbai's artificial reservoir Powai Lake. "As I approached the point where the lake overflows, I saw a couple of young kids having fun jumping into the crater of water. I like the fact I was able to capture the natural behavior of the kids, who were unaware I was taking their picture. They invented a means of recreation out of nowhere."
@everydaymumbai —
This photo by @abirladianu captures a young woman walking in the Wadala transit settlement of Mumbai, which authorities created as temporary housing in the 1970s but have never redeveloped. "When I saw such a young girl carrying a child, in the middle of the afternoon, I asked myself "Shouldn't she be in school?" It felt like a child mothering another child and it broke my heart."
@officialhumansofbombay —
Humans of Bombay is Karishma Mehta's popular spin off of the New York classic. Pictured, a young woman who was forced into an arranged marriage at 15. "A few months in to the marriage, I found out he was already married to another woman, but I was already pregnant. I delivered my daughter at the age of 16. My mother in law would insist I work in the scorching sun on their piece of farmland in Baramati, and when I used to resist I would get beaten up. Instead of protecting me, my husband used to join in and hit me as well. One day he threatened to hit my children too. That day, I walked out of the house and never looked back. I'm finally getting a legal separation, and I've never felt more independent."
@officialhumansofbombay —
"This was probably one of the most heart warming moments from our shoot at Dharavi (Mumbai's largest slum). Amidst the heat and lack of resources, this little girl looked up at me, smiled and said, "Didi, pani?" ("Water, sister?"). I guess it's because she's from one of the most hospitable places I've been to in the city. It was so overwhelming to have this little girl offer me water from her own glass, purely out of kindness."
@officialhumansofbombay —
"After my daughter passed away, I was very upset for a long time. Finally my husband pushed me into getting out of the house. For the last five years, he catches the fish and I clean them and come here to sell. We have a proper partnership. One day he took me fishing in the early hours of the morning -- it was a beautiful sunrise. That morning he caught the biggest fish I'd ever seen. He put it on my lap and said, "This is not for sale, this is a special fish for dinner with my wife." Even though I eat fish everyday, that was the best meal I've eaten all my life."
@indiapictures —
India Pictures shared this click by Instagrammer @sadak_chap, of boys celebrating Eid in a small town called Jamkhed in Maharashtra."I was driving and on my left I saw beautiful skies and few kids playing a game of cricket . The kids got very excited when they saw me walking towards them with a camera in my hand -- they came running towards me, anticipating I would be clicking them. They arranged themselves for the photo, I didn't even had to ask them to smile."
@indiapictures —
A roadside shoe shiner and cobbler in Calcutta, by Instagrammer @suva_09, a 20-year-old engineering student."I liked the way he was sitting in a hot afternoon, waiting for his customer. I like to capture the charm of Kolkata, my city -- its uniqueness, its people, its heritage. Instagram inspires me to wander more and click more photos. I want people from all over the world to see Kolkata and love its charm through my photographs."
@sumitdayal —
New Delhi-based photographer Sumit Dayal is fascinated by the changes new media are instigating in visual storytelling. "The grounds are levelled and we are now at the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. No one knows where this is heading."In this Insta from September 2014, Bashir Ahmed Khan carries household items that his family were able to salvage from the floods across to his neighbor's home in Banpora, Srinagar.
@sumitdayal —
"This boy is in costume to participate in Hindu mythology play at VidyGyan School's annual sports day. Vidygyan is a radical social initiative of the Shiv Nadar Foundation (SNF), one of the largest charities in India. It believes that transformational education is the most powerful tool for socio-economic change. In its quest to make India a talent pool of global leaders, the charity is investing in leadership institutions par excellence across urban and rural India."
@anushree_fadnavis —
"Train Diaries" is a project by photojournalist Anushree Fadnavis. She spends her time in Mumbai's commuter trains, chronicling the colorful stories of its passengers."This is Sarika, a transgender woman I met in the local train. She works in the male trains unlike others, asking for money. The transgender community in India have been denied their rights for a long time. Few have a full time job -- this is how they earn their livelihood. I want to show that they are real people with real dreams. I hope I can help contribute towards change and get them the respect they deserve.
@anushree_fadnavis —
"Barsha (left) and Sanjana are eunuchs (men who have been castrated), dressed up for their everyday job. To me both looked so beautiful. Sanjana was smiling throughout. I asked Sanjana her age and she claimed to be 18 years old, which I don't think is true. Eunuchs in Mumbai usually travel in the train asking for money to run their daily life. They call it their job. Few of them work for late night events or as bar dancers."
@anushree_fadnavis —
"While I asked the boy in blue shirt his name and his friend's, he told me his name was Mohit and he claimed that the other guy he had just met in the train and didn't know his name. When asked if they go to school they said yes, but I didn't believe them. I asked them what they do with the money they earn and Mohit told me he spends it on himself. These young boys don't know how to go about life. They know how to earn a buck the easy way, but is that enough? All I want is for kids is to enjoy their childhood. When I look at them whiling away their time in the train, I feel sad."