As the train enters Vijayawada city, at the nightfall, as you peep out of the window a spectacular display of illumination dazzles us. For a visitor, it looks like an altogether a puzzling scene what it could be?
Once the train chugs into the city, we witness a strange phenomenon. The entire city appears floating in twinkling decorations; thousands of lights seem to creep up into the sky. To a stranger, it is stunningly magical and can’t easily make out what he is looking at.
Enter daylight the somber reality opens up; of the jam-packed urban migrant population living in shanties, make-shift shelters, sheds. We can see them dangerously crawling, and climbing and settled in all across the lush green hills of Vijayawada city. As the night descends poverty lines melt into darkness and the play of lights overwhelms the skies.
The pictures represent the struggle for urban space to live. A forewarning how an environmental priority takes a back seat. And the sheer carelessness, throwing cautions to winds, to seek a place to belong and have a roof upon only matters for the migrants.
