Walk on the Roadside north Indian high way picture

While on a family road trip across India, photographer Matthieu Paley became intrigued by the people he saw walking along the side of the highway, and stopped to hear their stories.

Not all encounters were that spiritual. Some walkers were on the road because they had no other choice. When it comes to mental illness, for example, India offers little support and there is great stigma associated with it. Patients of overburdened institutions are sometimes dumped in the forests of India. They eventually end up on the highways. I met such lost souls. And then there were the victims of what I assumed was rape or child abuse, their vulnerability palpable. They were like walking ghosts—no one seemed to notice them.   

Because of the conditions (the highway, my waiting family, the speeding cars) I couldn’t spend much time with each person. I would try to bring some kind of fleeting comfort but I felt tears inside. 

Photographs by Matthieu Paley

Monsoon Rains india

Monsoon rains lashed parts of northern India this week, releasing the capital, New Delhi, from the grips of a heat wave. The country waits for the June-through-September rains to spread across the country every year.

The rains have come late this year, triggering concerns that crop yields will be lower, pushing up inflation and hurting the economy. Farmers in India rely on the annual showers.

.The rains have come late this year, triggering concerns that crop yields will be lower, pushing up inflation and hurting the economy. Farmers in India rely on the annual showers.

Some analysts argue that all the hand-wringing over a delayed monsoon is overblown.

While droughts do not always lead to lower food production in India, how the government prepares for and reacts to a shortfall in rain can trigger big swings in food supplies. The government is already distributing fast-growing, drought-resistant varieties of rice and is expected to limit exports of rice and wheat in an effort to ensure adequate domestic supplies.

children played on a waterlogged 

A fisherman  waited to cast his net in the Dava River. 

 A milkman rode a motorcycle through the rains

Dark clouds hovered over the central part of New Delhi

 Two men struggled to make it through a traffic jam with rising waters during rain showers