I finally decided to go with flickr as my photographic gallery. I ended up loading hundreds of pictures today. My favorite is the "My Water" collection.
A couple of months ago, I was in Mumbai for IndiMIX and we were enduring a long taxi ride to the Microsoft office. I had my camera with me as usual and was snapping random pictures everywhere. At a stop light, I saw this very young kid standing next to a bus stop. He was barefoot and looked very poor and possibly homeless (which in Mumbai has a very vague meaning!). He was carrying around a discarded half litre soda bottle full of water.
I started taking photos of him purely on instinct (and because of his charming smile). He was so curious about something hanging from a small chain on one of the poles of the bus stop. He kept playing with his water, washing his head, and splashing water everywhere. He was very quite, didn't seem to be speaking at all. He would walk around and then come back to the thing on the chain and he was SO curious.
It was heartbreaking! And then he moved away from the pole and went to a shop with shoes lined up in the window. I just wanted to get out of the car and get him a pair of shoes. But to my shock he wasn't interested in the shoes. He just wanted to pour some water on the window sill and play some more.
At that moment I decided to get out of the car and just hand him some money. He was unsupervised so I hoped he could spend it on something he LIKED and not needed. But before I could do anything the traffic started moving and there wasn't anything I could do.
I went back through the same route the next day but I couldn't find the kid.
You can see the "My Water" set at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nukeation/sets/72157594424347659/
and my other collections at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nukeation/