Delhi wakes to dust and litter

I'm out and about at around 7a.m most mornings with camera to try and catch scenes of Delhi waking. Within minutes your throat is full of dust as the poor make an effort to sweep their roads. Dust is eveywhere and you cannot escape the pungent smell of urine evaporating as the morning temperature rapidyl rises.

Within seconds of being seen by street children, especially the 'shoe boys' you are then hasseled for money. The best solution is to be polite and just carry on walking; and eventually you find yourself alone, albeit for just a few minutes. It becomes very tiring.

Rubbish is littered everywhere, and the plastic bottle collectors with their sacks appear from nowhere to huntout the previous nights bounty.

I have the impression that here in India nearly everything is recycled, and recycled, and recycled just until it is impossible to find any useful use for an item. So the street collectors of plastic; tin cans; and paper all play an important role in keeping their environment ' a little bit cleaner than it might otherwise be without their services. The problem of street odour; urine, rotting food; and open drains just doesn't seem to be a problem, at least for the local inhabitants.

No sooner as some of the rubbish has been cleared the clouds of dust rise again as the rickshaws, scooters and cars fight between each other down the sweltering breathless narrow streets ( of course with horns blastering)

Bins don't exist here, and all rubbish is thrown on the streets. The first time I drank a Chia tea (plastic cup) at a stall I looked at the owner in a pathetic manner as to gesture for the bins location. He just jollted his head in an upward manner, which I correctly read was throw it down infront of my stall. On doing so I had a ping of guilt, but to my surprise he said 'it's Ok'. I now know why the streets are so rubbish strewn That's the way it is, and so now my empty cups and drinking bottles also litter Delhi's streets. In this respect forget the habits of the West. This is a different world here!!