Black Waters

After twenty years abroad, I returned to Delhi, the city of my birth. I arrived with a set of expectations and quickly found them to be lacking. The city had changed considerably since I last lived here. In getting to know Delhi again, I was drawn to a little known network of streams that run throughout the city and my neighborhood in particular. Due to decades of negligence, what were once natural water bodies created by the topography of the land are now open sewers choked with trash. Untreated sewage and industrial effluent flows into these streams and then onto the heavily polluted Yamuna River. In some parts, the government has covered the stream with parks and in others the work remains incomplete. Covered or not, it is impossible to escape the stench and mosquitoes that rise from the water. This project started as a straightforward documentation of these polluted waterways; I worked my way up and down stream photographing what I saw. In doing so, a more nuanced picture began to emerge; I found that the images that I was making were a reflection of my own evolving relationship with Delhi. This relationship is a work in progress. I remain unsure of where this project is leading me and how it will end. The rose tinted glasses that I arrived with a year and a half ago have been discarded. I see the city anew and am simultaneously dismayed and excited by what Delhi has to offer.