The Other India VII: 'A Mumbai Builder Reshapes a Neighborhood'

'One of Mr. Gupta’s clients belongs to a caste that has traditionally grazed animals for a living. The man offloads hundreds of goats from trucks and herds them toward the slaughterhouse for 150 rupees (about $3) a day. Doing this over many years, he has saved 150,000 rupees. Of the many contractors in Shivaji Nagar, it was Mr. Gupta he entrusted with building what he knows will be his most precious possession: his first home.'

Read the seventh installment of my series, The Other India, on The New York Times' India site, here.
Photo: Pankaj Gupta, courtesy Priyanka at Urbz.
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Beautiful Thing: Update

Lots of year-end good news! Beautiful Thing is a Guardian Book of the Year, Economist Book of the Year, and the Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year 2011.

It was an Observer Book of the Year, Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year, and CNN Mumbai Book of the Year in 2010.

It is currently available in the Indian Subcontinent (hardback and paperback), Australia and New Zealand, the UK, and the Netherlands, with editions forthcoming elsewhere in Europe, the United States (March, 2012) and in three Indian languages.

If you want a pretty awesome stocking stuffer this Christmas head on over to Amazon UK, Amazon US, or Flipkart!

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The Other India VI: Child Labor's Fashionable Face

"Whenever we need money for clothes we ask our mothers,” he says. “Even though they wish we wouldn’t wear such low pants! But we like to stay in fashion. Before this, the style was for “half-pant” (three-quarter length pants) and white running sneakers. We wore those too!”

Children below the age of eighteen make up an estimated 40 per cent of India’s 1.2 billion people. Of this number, 35 million, or around 7 percent, are children in name only. They work an average of eight hours to twelve hours a day, performing adult jobs in sectors from agriculture to manufacturing. They are always paid below the market rate.'

Read the sixth installment of my series, The Other India, on the NYT's India Ink site here.
Photo: Chetan Raj Gond and Sarju Raj Gond, 17. Copyright: Sonia Faleiro, 2011
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