September 2025: Surreal India 1997 – 2018
I first went to India in 1997 to attend the International Bar Association (IBA) annual event in Delhi: it was my first IBA and also the first outing with my Nikon FM3 camera (a big upgrade for me) and so was a significant photographic trip for me. The pictures of the hunger strike, the political speech and Ambassador and Dog (pictured in the ‘carpark’ of the modern tower block of the Ministry of Water) come from those early rolls of Ilford 400 ASA film.
India in 1997 proved surreal and bewildering enough for me by itself, but with around 3,000 lawyers from around the world also making their dazed and confused way around Delhi, the frisson of cultures was overwhelming. I especially remember that strange summer evening BBQ at Fox Mandel’s estate with curry buffets laid out on trestle tables across the orchard estate and flaming oil torches vainly attempted to illuminate a pitch- black, moonless night, as besuited New York millionaire litigators were confronted by impoverished child acrobats from the Himalayas – all just a little too much!
The following photos are all black and white. I will have to collate my archive of digital pictures for colour ones I have taken over the many years and share them sometime in the future. I have been inspired by the late great Raghubir Singh who used the same Widelux camera as me (see ‘India Dreams’, and others) to brilliant effect - so if some of the 160 degree pictures inspire you, please do check out his colour work. Truly magnificent.
My former employer ‘Euromoney PLC’ was surprisingly well known as a brand in India and hence got my access to the tent of our ‘Relay Hunger Strikers’ in Delhi – this presumably meant that as one of the hunger strikers got a tad peckish, he would be replaced by another well-fed colleague– all very civilized! There is a joy regarding the ‘lift’ pictures – I remember a couple of signs next to lifts in Mumbai: ‘Up only’, which confused me, and ‘The tossing of cigars is strictly prohibited’ – which struck me as having a rather Bateman tone to it! Signs such as ‘partially air-conditioned’ amused in their honesty – as did tuk-tuks embellished with the (I understand quite common) proud owner’s name of ‘Anus’. And the pictures I didn’t take – the ruins confronting one in the lobby of one of Mumbai’s oldest and most prominent law firms, and the conspicuous, leather-bound copy of ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’ left open for me to see on the desk of a prominent Delhi attorney.
I am not fond of what may be considered exploitative pictures, but poverty is everywhere and therefore unavoidable in India. The photo of the children swimming in the Mumbai sea in particular strikes me as quite sinister when you consider this is where the ‘Hotel Taj’ terrorists set off in their speed boats to reach the backside of the Taj Hotel to perpetuate the three day attack and murder in 2008 - one of the partners of a prominent Mumbai law firm I visited a couple of months later being one of the many victims.
I couldn’t have made my way around and captured these images without the help and indulgence of the joyful taxi drivers I encountered in Delhi and Mumbai – especially The Mighty Khan, who first picked me up in his Ambassador around 2012 and showed me all the backways of his city Mumbai over the next five years. AI recall that, after a somewhat tense mobile ‘phone conversation with my wife, he sighed and told me: “Every man same wife”.
