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 has crawled deep under my skin. I live at its border, and it has represented the outer limit of my mobility for months during 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. I wanted to capture the wonderful density of details that illuminate the wonders of the mundane. A well-framed portrait, with clean lines and no chaos, the kind of shot that would win a photo contest, cannot evoke the raw vital feeling that 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.
The bright spots
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 rare tolerant bubble in an intolerant megacity.
The small but well-loved public parks are a symbol of that openness and tolerance. Delhi is one of the world’s greatest park cities, peppered with priceless monuments set in a laundry list of beautifully manicured green spaces. None of Humayunpur’s parks make that list. They are a little less clean and green, but the people don’t care. Young women swing their legs and old men work out their shoulders on the metal equipment. Families spread out blankets and their kids totter around. Cricket games spring up in tiny patches of open ground. I have never seen any aggression in these parks. They are sanctuaries of space from the tightly packed lives that most people have to live.
The people themselves are a wonder to behold. The average folks wear blazes of color that grab the eye despite the need for conservative dress, sarees and turbans and shirts from across the Indian rainbow. Humayunpur is also full of people beyond the average. Sadhus, Hindu holy men, come through often in saffron robes. Muslim butchers sport single-color suits and impressive white beards. One old man, bundled up from the cold, sets up a fiery hookah at a main intersection every winter day. A genuine snake-charmer graces the streets at least once, giving us a show. Jacked Northeastern guys spill out of the gym. An impressively mustached man in a Rajasthani outfit sells what seem to be tension bands. A holy man leads a sacred cow, bedecked in shells and flowers, down the same route that a funeral procession takes days later.
The businesses strive against competition on all sides and yet still operate on a distinctly kinder wavelength than what you’d find in a big market like Lajpat Nagar. They number in the thousands. There is a laundromat called Smart Laundry For Smart People. A streetside noodle place where a half plate of chowmein costs 50 rupees and is enough for four meals. A store specialized in fixing pressure cookers. A gallery of oil paintings no more than a meter wide but stretching down a long hall. Sabziwallas who still give free mirchi and dania without being pestered.
The dark spots
But Humayunpur is not entirely gentle. The only Muslims are squeezed into a tiny area around the meat market. 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. There is no unobtrusive way to visit their area. From a distance, though, 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 there are whole families relaxing, enjoying the sunset from the top of the scraps, so close to privileged people and yet so far from privilege themselves.
It was never easy to see families living on a dump so close to riches. It was at least a home, though, and the day when the police kicked them out onto the street was hard to swallow. I was biking through the cool early morning air, absorbed in thought, when some change from the normal setting subconsciously threw me off. Someone had cleared the bushes and screens that usually gave the dump cover from the road’s prying eyes. On the sidewalk outside the dump wall, families sat with all their possessions in piles, trying to consolidate. The scene felt vulnerable and deeply denuded.
A police truck idling nearby confirmed what had happened. Happily, everyone was back living on the dump a week or two later. Resilience, and the fragile segregation that preserves an unequal order, prevailed in the end.
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 will never play that role, but my time with a camera in the urban village inspired me to consider such boundaries more deeply.
The history
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 even to feel that India is more than you could have imagined.
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 humanity 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 Delhi had done the same in the far-flung hills east of the Brahmaputra River. In their extractive zeal they shoehorned these two vastly different places into the same country despite a lack of linguistic, cultural, or historical connections. The hill states continue as a rather forgotten, disrespected 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, Northeastern students settled into Humayunpur, enticed by cheap rents. Their presence had a founder effect and a diverse bunch of Northeasterners 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 joined me at 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 cash 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.
Capturing Humayunpur
The camera can never quite capture all these layers of history and action. Still, a single picture taken at the right time could tell the story of Humayunpur as sharply and memorably than any number of words. Words just 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. Looking at the streets through a camera 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.
