I have been to visit the Salaam Baalak Trust today here in Delhi.
The trust works with street children who live and work in and around New Delhi Station.
They provide children with support through the provision of shelter, food, medical assistance and education. Where possible they also work to try and get children back to their families.
Our guide was 21 year old man called Shekar, formally a street child he guided us around New Delhi Station as well as the back allies of Delhi explaining some of the problems and challenges facing kids here.
Shekar also took us to visit two hostels for boys to see for ourselves the impact of the work.
I am planning to meet up with Shekar again later in the week to see a girls hostel on the outskirts of Delhi.
I am also currently trying to set up a visit to a charity working within the slums of Delhi.
Well the internet and telephone service has been down for over a week now, apparently it is due to the construction of the new metro train service being built for the Commonwealth games in 2010.
It is making communication here quite difficult the nearest internet shop is at least 40 minutes away from here by taxi so I am posting this when and where I can!
To update, I have spent the past week visiting various sites in Delhi, went to Humayuns Tomb. Humayuns Tomb, was a forerunner to the Taj Mahal, according to the guidebook it is one of the best Moghul Monuments in India, it features much of the same layout and elegance of the Taj but doesn’t quite have the same impact or scale. It was originally built in 1570 and is home to the tombs of many members of the royal family.
I have spent some time exploring the grounds at the Kendra this week. Scattered amongst the landscaped gardens here are various installations created by previous artists.
Wednesday, I went to the Indira Ghandi Centre for the Arts to see the City of Djinns. A really interesting mix of music and story telling, it follows the story of one mans journey through both the historical, political and spiritual landscape of India.
This last week has been filled with wedding fever here at Sanskriti.
The owner, Mr O P Jain, has two of his grandchildren getting married this month and this week marks some of the first events of the wedding ceremonies.
Indian weddings are usually a big deal but here at Sanskriti it has been done on a grand scale. The first event was held last night, a classical Indian concert held in the amphitheatre.
Artists and craftspeople had spent the past two weeks painstakingly preparing the venue, intricate designs were painted on carefully prepared clay floors (the clay is mixed with cow dung to help deter mosquito’s and applied by hand), traditional orange garlands of flowers covered every gate and pillar and vast bags of pink rose petals were scattered into the water, hundreds of traditional small clay lanterns were suspended between pillars to create curtains of ambient lighting. It was an amazing spectacle. This next week will see further ceremonies which will culminate next week with a dance and music performance by South Indian dancers and musicians here at the Kendra.
We also visited the Prajapat community.
There are about 300 working potters on the site, spread over several acres.
Everywhere you look there are terracotta water vessels and ceramic containers including small cups, money boxes and flowerpots, even the walls of the houses are constructed out of pots!!
Most of the people that live here have migrated through necessity to the city in order to improve their living standards. Its extremely hot and dusty. We create quite a stir, foreigners arriving with our cameras!
The ceramic vessels are still hand made but are identical in design, mass produced for the terracotta markets here in India.
They are still highly skilled but lack some of the beauty and refinement of the work we had seen earlier at Giri Raj Prasad's studio, these people have to produce a lot of pieces each day in order to make enough money to survive.
These vessels are the everyday utilitarian objects of India, they probably sell for a few rupees each.
