Men (at work)

Until now, I have more or less ignored men in my photography while traveling through India, apart from holy men such as monks, priests, sadhus and babas, who exert a particular fascination on me. I have no real explanation for that. Maybe I found them boring and uninspiring. Many I didn’t want to approach them, especially when they were hanging around in groups which you see so often especially in rural areas. Somehow, this changed on my recent trip. Whether on my walks through the streets of villages, small towns or big cities – I saw so many interesting faces. Old men, young men, working men, men playing cards, reading the newspaper or just sitting in front of a house and doing nothing. Even the hard working men had a smile for me when I approached them with my camera. Some of them didn’t care at all, their views were as obscured as their brain by chewing paan all day or smoking Ganja. Meet the men of the streets of India – the rikscha and paan wallahs, the shop keepers, the street dentists, the street barbers, the rice traders, the truck drivers and the construction workers. Their faces all have a story to tell.