Under Delhi’s mountains of waste lie buried a grim social reality

Birds of carrion circle over the massive mound that looks more like a hideous hillock. Every now and then, one or two of the birds swoop down, use their talons to pick up objects and, in a flash, they fly back up, their enormous wings flailing.

On the mound, men and children, with hunched shoulders and lowered heads, sift through the filth with bare hands. Several meters below, massive payloader trucks groan as they carry mountains of garbage. Polythene packs, blown from the landfill, cling to tree branches several kilometers away from this gigantic waste dump.