In India you can see man and monkeys living together in an uneasy truce. A photograph that got away was of at least 20 monkeys all dangling from a traffic light pole in Agra! Before I got my camera out, the bus had moved on and the clambering monkeys remain a delightful snapshot in my memory. I’m sure the monkeys run rampant in places like Benares, Mathura and Haridwar.

In fact, I distinctly remember having my toast snatched from my hand by a greedy monkey at the Haridwar Railway Station many years ago. Now I caught glimpses of monkeys – and humans, outside a small wayside temple near the Ranthambhore National Park. Seen as a form of Hanuman, the venerated Monkey God, these monkeys are indulged and even fed by passers-by.

Fundraising in New York can have a wonderful ripple effect and translate into health camps, scholarships and education for children in the slums in India. That’s been the happy result of Children’s Hope India, a non-profit organization started by a group of five women professionals in New York in 1992 with seed money donated by them and with just one project in hand.

India is serenity, beauty, calmness. India is noise, pollution, crowds. India is irony, humor, drama. India is sharp contrasts, extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

India is a billion people and you get to see many facets of their lives in Clive Limpkin’s book,’India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z’ (Abbeyville Press)

They’ve come from different parts of America, each finding their way to India. With their cameras, eleven American photographers have captured the essence of the country, each drawn to the lush, visual kaleidoscope that is India.

Can you take a taxi or drive a car from the US to Rajasthan? Over 500 people did that when they came to the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Grand Central for the much anticipated Children’s Hope Gala, An Evening in Rajasthan. This was a social event with buzz and did not disappoint with the crème de la crème dressed in their royal best. The women guests were greeted with flowers, bindis and bangles, and the men were welcomed with bandhini scarves being put around their necks.
(Consul General of India Prabhu Dayal with Lotus Award honorees AJ and Poonam Khubani)

How do you recreate Rajasthan in New York? With a lot of chutzpah and a lot of friends! Ten of us at Children’s Hope India, a New York-based non-profit are trying to recreate the magic of the desert state in the heart of Manhattan. It all began with Satish Gupta’s magical painting ‘Peacock’ from the Thar collection. It inspired us to invent Rajasthan in the Big Apple – and the artist not only donated us his art for our invitation cards but also some beautiful work for the silent auction.

How many Indias are there?

As many as the eyes that perceive it.

Each visitor sees a different India, bringing in their own experiences to the encounter. British photographer Clive Limpkin has a lively new book ‘India Exposed: the Sub-Continent A-Z’ which shows the results of his brush with India. His camera, however, returns time and again to what really moves him: the human connection. As he writes: “When friends ask for one good reason to visit, I offer them a billion – it’s the people.”