A street-smart life
His is a true story of rags to riches. Meet 23-year-old award-winning lensman, Vicky Roy, whose thorough understanding of streetlife makes him a photographer of an extraordinary league.
Vicky closely explored the Delhi streets as a homeless ragpicker, who would loiter at the New Delhi Railway Station, as a street urchin.
As an 11-year-old, after stealing money from his father, he ran away from his home in abysmally poor Purulia village in West Bengal. “My parents were very poor and I was sick of all the restrictions. So one fine day, I hopped on to the train and came to Delhi. On landing up at the station, I got together with other streetkids and we would often operate as a group,” he says. He would steal food from trains and collect empty water bottles to fill them with water and sell them in the general compartment for `5. He even worked as a dishwasher at a dhaba.
But destiny had bigger plans for the soft-spoken Vicky. Today, he’s in a way Delhi’s own Slumdog Millionaire. His work has been chosen for display at the prestigious San Diego Photography Exhibition.
But how did luck by chance happen? He got enrolled at the Saalam Balak Trust, an organisation which takes care of homeless children. “They give me shelter, and importantly, sent me to a regular school,” he says.
But best was yet to come. After his Class 10, he got an opportunity to be associated with British photographer Dixie Benjamin, who was making a documentary on SBT. “I would carry his tripod and look at him in amazement as he worked with his camera. So I took him as a mentor,” says Vicky.
He would walk miles to attend his photography course at Kala Triveni Sangam and then assisted photographer Anay Maan.
There has been no looking back for Vicky since. He held his solo first exhibition, “Street Dream” at the India Habitat Centre, supported by British High Commission. The show also travelled to London. In 2009, Delhi-based Ramchander Nath Foundation nominated Vicky for a mentorship program by the Maybach Foundation, wherein he was chosen to photo-document the reconstruction of the World Trade Center in New York. After his six-month stay there, he held his second solo show at the American Center last year.
The journey has been exceptional for globetrotting Vicky, who adds, “Delhi will remain a city of dreams that gave me my pehchan (identity).”
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