India, Nov. 29 -- Look at these brown cardboard cartons, and then look at that brown wooden doorway. The juxtaposition defines the jarring character of Old Delhi's Charkhe Walan Chowk intersection. Tidy relic of the past commingling with the industrious present.

The cartons contain bottles of soap dispensers, says one of the five friendly men sitting around the cartons. They work as labourers, and live jointly like a band of brothers in a nearby alley. One man, with a summertime gamcha slung along his shoulder, is seated at some distance away from the rest of his colleagues, his back leaning against the beautiful doorway. He explains that the cartons arrived a while ago in a van, sent by a distributor. We labourers, he says, will haul th...