When people talk about India, they often will speak of it's extremes. It does have a very large poor population, but many people know India more from their Bollywood movies which mostly show off the wealthy side of the population. Take the below examples of very popular songs from the blockbuster Dhoom 2 (The sequel to Dhoom 1 if you ever feel like watching the entire movies)
But it seems rare that people are shown a home of the rapidly growing middle class. I was fortunate enough to take a cooking class near New Deli India and they told me I could share my photos with anybody who might want a little look into their life. These pictures below start with our drive to the neighborhhood.
Although there has indeed been a Green Revolution with advanced food crops and farming technology, a good percentage of farming is still done by hand as you can see in this picture. Often new genetically modified crops are simply too expensive for poor farmers to purchase, and a modern tractor is even more costly.
I have mentioned before that garbage pickup is something that we often take for granted, but it is a cost that many areas of developing countries can not afford so there would often be refuse strewn about here and there.
This is an example of their sewer system. Everything from these single family homes basically comes out into the street like this and it is washed away at a pretty slow rate at this time of the year when it is dry and there is hardly any rain. You will often find animals eating out of it as there are usually bits of food. It's not unusual to see cows or other animals walking around.
Notice how architecturally there are these distinct entrance areas. In many societies there is a strong distinction between private family space and the larger social sphere and having little fenced in areas like this are common.
This is where we had out cooking lessons, this is a self-built home as are most of them in this middle class neighborhood. As you can see, they included a little shop section for tourists who come in for classes.
You can see a little shrine here build into the home, all of the flowers smelled lovely.
Many buildings are made of brick, but often concrete is easier to work with and relatively affordable. Below you will see the bathroom, there is a simple hole in the ground there with foot marks on either side and this is one of the more common bathrooms in many developing nations and the sit down toilet is more rare but increasingly popular.
This is the roof here, note the satellite which gives them tv and internet access.
This is their child's room and as you can see it is pretty standard for a kids room you might see anywhere in the world. You can also see an electrical box here, it is all self built and kind of in the process of construction still.
Here is some of the food, it might look familiar if you have ever been to an Indian restaurant. Notice the metal tray and cups, also pretty standard.
After we ate the daughter did henna tattoos for anybody who wanted them. These are temporary and usually focus on the hands.
This is of course one of the millions of gods in Hinduism, Ganesha. It is for good luck, similar to when you might see someone who puts a horse shoe above a doorway here.
You have probably noticed that often you might see people with a dot or a mark in the middle of their forehead, when I was there I had a bit of a headache and the locals told me that the color of that dot changes depending on what it is used for and the red type was used to sooth headaches and I have to admit it did make me feel better. At the time I thought those marks were mostly cosmetic, but they in fact have multiple uses and purposes. I have a few final pictures here of the walk out of the neighborhood just to give you a little sense of place. I have some videos of the cooking class which I will include at a future time.
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