Two lifetimes
I grew up in a small village town in India and went to the same school all my life till I was 18. The man in the images here, Nathai Raam has been the gardener in the school for the last 51 years.
I ran into him late last year and we together picked up some flowers from his past. He started as a coal miner during his early teens but a chance meet with a gardener's daughter, and eventual marriage to her led him to pick up his father-in-law's trade.
He often wonders about his parallel life if he would have continued to live amongst coal rather than flowers
He often wonders about his younger self when he was fair skinned, his skin colour now after getting baked in the garden everyday for 51 years
He often wonders about how this life would have been different if he had no love for smoking 15 beedis everyday
