We arrived in Kolkata at night and the city was asleep. When I stepped onto the streets the next morning, I was in shock. Babu babu! Cycle rickshaws pedaled past women in saris along the dirt road. This was the first photo I took in India. At that point in time, I felt like I've woken up to a nightmare. Have I travelled back to the past? Such a far cry from my idea of what Kolkata, one of the major cities in India, ought to be like. We wandered along Airport Gate No 2 looking for food but nothing looked edible to us. In other parts of the city, the smell is overwhelming as open defecation and dumping are ubiquitous. Lucky we just had to hold our breaths for 12 hours...