Inside India: Street life in Kolkata

Local band members wait for a bus to take them to a wedding venue where they are booked to perform.

Roadside vendors Sabitri Das, 59, and Narayan Prasad, 69, chat as they wait for customers in front of a parked truck. Das said that the city used to be less busy, which was good. Prasad said that people in the city are friendly and his sales have increased with the rising population.

Labourers speak on mobile phones opposite a public call office (PCO) in a market area.

Men bathe at a roadside municipal water point.

A masseur tends to a customer on the banks of the River Ganges.

Female vendors selling flower garlands eat their lunch under a bridge at a wholesale flower market.

A man fills a container with drinking water from a roadside municipal tap.

Ratan Mandal, 10, pulls three-year-old Bubai Tati, as he sits on a broken box on a railway track in a slum area.

Nizamuddin, 60, pours cooking oil into tins as he weighs them at a wholesale market. Nizamuddin said he has lived in Kolkata for a long time but has no shelter. He uses plastic sheets to take shelter from rains and from the chill in winter. He wishes there were night shelters for workers like him.

Mohammad Afroze, 15, plays soccer in an alley as used pairs of jeans are hung to dry before they are sold in a second-hand clothes market. Afroze said he loves Kolkata because he was born in the city and people love to play soccer.

Men play chess on the pavement beside a busy street.

Rahul Shaw, 10, reads a textbook in his father's rickshaw before he goes to school. Shaw said he studies in a government-run school that gives him free meals. He wants to become a doctor and treat people for free.

Cycle rickshaw drivers sleep in their rickshaws along a roadside early morning.

Labourers drink tea as they rest after work in a wholesale vegetable market.

In Kolkata, the lifestyle is simple but it also can be tough. Some people earn a living by selling second-hand clothes, driving rickshaws or working in food markets. Those too poor to afford a home of their own sleep where they work.

Kolkata is the cultural and commercial centre of East India. It is the capital of West Bengal and is home to more than 4.5 million people, while the Greater Kolkata region is home to about 14.1 million, making it the third-most populous metropolitan area in India.

Located on the east bank of the Hooghly river, the city is also home to the country’s oldest operating port.

Food can be cheap in the city and the poor and rich try to live together in harmony. Residents are always helpful towards people who’ve moved to Kolkata to find work in order to send money back home. Outside working hours residents of the city formerly known as Calcutta might enjoy a game of chess or carrom (a type of “strike and pocket” table game), while children play soccer with friends.