From Delhi's Railway Platform to the Photography World

Vicky Roy was born into a family where his father worked as a tailor. At around the age of three he was sent to live at his maternal uncle's house, where, he says, relatives treated him very badly. Films shown at the village theatre gave him some hope of a different life.

At nine he took money from his uncle's wallet and boarded a train to Delhi. The journey lasted more than twenty hours, and he reached the capital's railway station cold, hungry and frightened. Other street children took him in. After a couple of months at a shelter run by Salaam Baalak Trust, he went back to the platform.

He lived on the station platform for about a year. He collected recyclable waste, refilled discarded bottles to sell to passengers, and searched train bins for food. He recalls that police chased the children, that gang fights were common and that older boys stole their savings. Later he washed dishes for long hours at a roadside eatery, which left him with a fungal infection in both hands. A volunteer from Salaam Baalak then moved him into a rescue home at about the age of ten, where he went to a government school, did well and completed the tenth grade.

He briefly returned to his family but soon went back to Delhi and took a photography course. He worked as an assistant to the British photographer Benjamin Dixie and then to the portrait photographer Anay Mann. A solo show in Delhi in 2007 led to a London exhibition in 2008, and in 2009 he was sent to New York for six months to document the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre.

He has since written the book Home.Street.Home, co-founded a photography library in Delhi, built a house for his family, and been honoured at Buckingham Palace.