Get your plane right on time

Yesterday I was planning on writing some last thoughts on my previous experiences of India, which were going to focus on the contrasts interwoven into the fabric of the country like gold thread on plain cloth. The picture above is one I took of the Taj Mahal, surely one of the world’s most photographed buildings, but set in the context of the city of Agra, with its crowded buildings in varying degrees of disrepair, each less photogenic than the tomb which dominates the skyline and attracts tourists in droves. Its familiar splendour seems somehow incongruous when placed amidst houses where, if you look closely, you’ll spot a goat tethered to somebody’s rooftop.

I was also going to talk about seeing women in rags stood in traffic at junctions, clutching swaddled babies in one arm and selling copies of high fashion magazines to wealthy commuters with the other, giving the name ‘Cosmopolitan’ new meaning. I was also going to mention the elderly man, presumably homeless, who I saw being ejected from a museum of natural history in Delhi. He had found his way into a life-size diorama entitled “Endangered Animals of India”, but he was not made welcome there.

Unavoidable distractions and last minute preparations meant I never posted what I wrote then, but today presented me with another moment of high contrast from the minute I boarded my flight. My excitement at getting the trip underway was prematurely curtailed by muffled screaming coming from the back of the plane. Over the tops of the seats I could see a large man with a bald head pinning someone to their chair. The stewardess came down the aisle to reassure those of us staring blankly in disbelief. “He has tried to come here illegally”, she said, “He is being sent home.” A home that one has to be dragged back to kicking and screaming is surely no home at all. The excitement of families and tourists on their way to Delhi and that lone man's terror provided the first dramatic juxtaposition of a journey I'm sure will be full of them, a timely reminder of the struggles people face here that leave them seeing no hope but escape.

I don't like cricket

"You're English? We love England! Go Michael!"
"Oh, yeah... Michael Owen's pretty great."
"Who's Michael Owen? Michael Vaughan! Michael Vaughan!"

It turns out that teenage boys in India don't care much for football. At Akshay Pratishthan, a school in Vasant Kunj in Delhi, when the bell goes for break it's bat and ball they reach for rather than jumpers for goalposts. I never played cricket at school, so after I'd taught English phrases and pronunciation in the classroom, they returned the favour by schooling me in the playground.

Akshay Pratishthan has over 400 students but what makes it truly remarkable is it's integration of children from different social backgrounds and with different physical abilities. One of the defining architectural features of the school is the long, gradual wheelchair ramp that loops up the side of the building to ensure that all students can get to the second and third floors - something that, now I think of it, couldn't be said for many areas of my university.

It's a relatively prestigious school, but parents are assessed and then pay what they can afford. Wealthy parents were happy to pay the fees to get their child in, but equally it was not uncommon for some parents to be supporting several children on 1,200 rupees a month, which at the time translated to around £15, or a dollar a day. In these cases, schooling was free, subsidised by donations the school received and by the higher fees those who could afford it were paying.

The important thing, though, is that it worked. Nobody, least of all the students, seemed to care about their contrasting home lives or the wheelchairs, crutches and prosthetic limbs which were commonplace. Due to the school's limited provisions, wheelchairs were usually old and crutches and prosthetics were never guaranteed to match the size of the child, but on no account would this be allowed to interfere with that obligatory game of cricket.

No Parking at the Gates of Heaven

Thinking about going back to India prompted me to dig out and read my notebooks from the first time I travelled there in 2005, when I worked with local governance NGO Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra. This was the first photograph I took when I arrived in Delhi. Of course I knew that cows roamed free in Indian cities, but looking back I am certain I wasn't prepared for actually seeing them making their way through traffic.

Another unmissable first impression was the staggering array of temples and places of worship India has to offer. My favourite was one we passed on the drive from the airport. The sign above the door read, in English:

Gateway to Heaven

Before adding, charitably:

Admission Free

And then a final note, perhaps a reminder of the transience of our worldly possessions:

No Parking

Another sign we passed ostensibly apologised for the building work going on to improve the road, but could have been a message from those in power in India to those dismayed by the slow crawl of social change. It declared: “Construction in progress. Please be patient with delays for a better tomorrow.” It will be fascinating to see, some four years on, whether that "better tomorrow" appears any closer for the majority of India's billion inhabitants.

Finding My Feet

Ngiri-Ngiri, Kinshasa, DRC photograph by Susan Barry

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at my desk at work when I received a phonecall from the offices of The Guardian to tell me that I had been shortlisted in the amateur category for this year’s International Development Journalism Competition.

By the time I began receiving confirmation emails and an invitation to visit The Guardian's shiny new offices in King's Cross, I had just about convinced myself that this was neither a wind-up nor an administrative error. Being shortlisted meant that not only would the article I had submitted on open sewage trenches in the Democratic Republic of Congo be published online, I would also be "flown to a developing country to research a new assignment".

At The Guardian I met not only the seven other shortlisted amateurs, whose intimidatingly good articles are here, but also the eight finalists in the professional category, whose pieces you can read here. We were all eager to discover where we would be sent off to, and amidst all the tension that can be created by pulling strips of paper from a glass bowl, I was selected to visit the partner organisations of rural livelihoods NGO Find Your Feet in India to research and write an article about traditional silk artisans living near the ancient city of Varanasi, and the pressures that an increasingly globalised marketplace is placing on their way of life.

The afternoon was a blur of visa applications and briefings, including a short visit to Find Your Feet's small London offices. I fly out to Delhi on September 5th.