Aside

One thing that this blog has certainly failed at so far is giving any reasonable representation of the poverty/inequality/quasi-colonialism that is present here. In large part, this is because I am simply not comfortable stopping on the street or popping out of a car window (we almost never travel more than a couple of blocks on foot here) and taking pictures of people who are going through a daily life that is incomprehensibly bleak. Another reason for my reticence, is that I just do not understand the situation; the forces at work are far too new, large and complex for me to begin to understand at this time. So, I'm just not capable of the analysis that would be necessary to explain any of it.

What I can say with confidence is that Banaglore is a city of stark contrasts (as I believe most of urbanized India is). Luxury apartment buildings overlook worksites where men and boys (and sometimes their families, including small children) live in lean-to shacks made of corrugated metal, without sanitation. Children labor in full view, sometimes at dangerous occupations and always without any of the comforts and assurances enjoyed by even the lowest American laborers. A few blocks from a modern office building you will see a tent city, made of found scrap materials, that many families call home. I don't have it in me at this point to grab my camera and disclose myself as a voyeur of that kind of squalor, but it is here; know it has affected me.