At first glance, Humayunpur is no different than any other semi-dense Delhi neighborhood. It is full of life, vibrant, diverse, choked with vegetable carts, pharmacy signs and other colorful things, suffused with intriguing ancient and recent history, and home to more human souls and dreams and stories than any patch of land its size has a right to. After some time on its streets, one realizes that it is a unique world unto itself amidst the vast universe of Delhi.
This fascinating urban village is significant to me not only because I live at its border, but also because it represented the outer limit of my mobility during months of the Coronavirus lockdown. Confined mostly inside the house, I came to Humayunpur often with the stated goal of buying food. I was really there to absorb the raw human energies of the place that remained evident even through the curfews, closures, and restrictions.
The observer who takes five minutes to watch its streets will feel that they have seen everything in the world and learned everything about life. Young and old, rich and poor, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians brush by each other in the narrow lanes. Space is at such a premium that even the air above the streets has been claimed by infinitely tangled wires and cardboards ads for everything from broadband services to dog grooming. Food delivery workers on bikes zoom by at a frenetic pace, leaning on their horns, while shop owners who’ve sat in the same chair for decades look on.
Gradually, it became my mission to capture all of the key elements of Humayunpur in a single picture. Street photography is about seeking the details that illuminate the wonders of the mundane. In Humayunpur, the wonder comes from the incredible density of details. A single portrait or well-framed minimal shot cannot evoke the feeling of raw vitality that biking through Humayunpur gives me. I started to notice which streets had fascinating details that could contribute to a visual story of the village; and I started bringing my camera every time I went.
This is prosperous South Delhi, and while Humayunpur is notably less wealthy than its fancy neighbors of Green Park and Safdarjung Enclave, most people seem to be doing alright. Grandmothers navigate the ruts while holding several youngsters by the hand, and fathers carry big-eyed newborns. It’s a family place, fundamentally different from more trafficked areas like Old Delhi which are aggressively dominated by men. Above all, the village feels like a more tolerant bubble in an intolerant megacity.
But Humayunpur is not entirely gentle. Biking through, I’ve seen a young man lying prone with a massive open chest wound, gasping for air as a crowd looked on; a group of women workers eating breakfast in a construction pit, while a foreman angrily yelled at them to eat faster; and teams of desperate-eyed women from other neighborhoods, unwashed children at their hips, asking for money with memorized English phrases. Across the road from the northeast corner of the village there is an active industrial garbage dump which houses several families. While there is no unobtrusive way to visit their area, you can see grandmothers and young kids hauling water-jugs and goats up the ladder over the wall and onto the dump, then walking out of sight. Sometimes you can see whole families relaxing, enjoying the sunset from the top of the scraps, so close to privileged people and yet so far from privilege themselves.
These were the pieces of Humayunpur that I could not photograph with a clear conscience. It feels extractive to capture such difficult, oppressed moments and lived realities in strangers’ lives. And yet, such photographs can change minds and bring hearts together in the common cause of human dignity. Photographs of the darkest injustices of our society are valuable, and there is a respectful way to take them. I’m not there yet, but my time with a camera in the urban village inspired me to consider such boundaries more deeply.
Humayunpur’s claim to fame is its status as home to Delhi’s biggest community of Northeastern Indians. Every major Indian news site has written about how the Northeasterns, with their tattooed men and shorts-wearing women, have unexpectedly found a foothold in this urban village. The articles then turn, rightly, to the explosion of food that they’ve brought with them from the hills. When finding the right gali and descending to the bamboo-walled, single-room Hornbill restaurant; and then eating spicy pork dishes washed down by rice beer, while listening to the English and Naga conversations from the other tables; it is very possible to feel that you have left the country entirely. Or at least the Hindi belt.
But the strands of history that have enabled this mixing of worlds are intriguing enough to deserve their own article. Mughal and pre-Mughal rulers built imposing tombs that still dot the landscape of Deer Park, reminding us of the layers of ancient greatness that still have a hold on Delhi. In a more recent iteration, Humayunpur was a farming village of the Jat community, but ever-expanding Delhi consumed and developed the fields in its inexorable path to becoming the world’s greatest metropolis. Dodging motos on the packed streets in 2020, it is hard to imagine that some active fields survived in the village until well into the 1980’s. In parallel, the British who colonized and extracted from Delhi had done the same in the far-flung hills east of the Brahmaputra River, somehow tying these two vastly different places into the same country despite a lack of linguistic, cultural, or historical connections. These hill states continue as a rather forgotten part of independent India, but their people have gradually scratched out footholds in India’s mainstream cities. At some point in the 90’s or early 2000’s, some Northeastern students settled into Humayunpur, enticed by cheap rents. Their presence had a founder effect and more people from a variety of Northeastern states came in, starting businesses and lives.
And so it is that the conservative Jats, former farmers, survive by renting out their buildings to tattooed restaurateurs whose great-grandparents were remote hill people from a different world. When trying to get more specific, Humayunpur’s history becomes fascinating and mysterious. Fact is hard to separate from fiction. Pieces reveal themselves one by one, in tall tales and decades-old pictures unearthed on social media.
Once, Mallika accompanied me to the barbershop and spoke to the outgoing man who sang as he cut my hair, shaved me, and viciously cracked my neck (“Clients always ask me to turn on the music when I cut. It makes my hands work perfectly”). He introduced himself as Vishan, and said that he was from a village in U.P. but had been working in Humayunpur for 14 years. He told us that a group of Israeli men (in Hindi: “the men from Nazareth”) had settled in the village in the early 2000’s with the main intent of selling drugs. To ensure that landlords would ask no questions, they paid absurdly high rents- Rs 25,000 per month rather than the usual 5,000- and thus initiated a gentrification that affected the balance of the society. At the same time, they made positive contributions: they brought some more ash into local circulation, opened up male “saloons” (barbershops) and taught others how to cut mens’ hair, and started restaurants that created employment. The Israelis hung on for a number of years until they became involved with Humayunpur’s young women and in some cases acted abusively. Their relationship with the village broke down and they left, never to be seen again.
The camera can never capture these layers of history directly. And yet a single picture taken at the right time can tell the story of Humayunpur more sharply and memorably than any number of words. Words can bolster the photo by providing the context, the legends and constraints and twists of fate that create each moment as it occurs. In countless walks and rides through Humayunpur, I’ve never taken that perfect photo. There are simply too many variables, and no chance to bring everything together at once. But I’ve learned so much about the place, and become so fond of it, that every one I click feels special. More than anything else, street photography has brought home for me the utter beauty and sheer complexity of this neighborhood that I’m so lucky to live next to, and of the monstrous city that surrounds it.
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