Maharajas. The Taj Mahal. Colorful saris, bindis, henna-dyed hair and flowers. Call centers, skyscrapers, the most expensive house in the world. Some of the largest slums in Asia, children without shoes, contaminated water, and emaciated elderly. Affluence and poverty, power and oppression, globalization and deeply ingrained traditions. India is a country of contrast and contradiction, the tangible manifestations of its flaws set against a strikingly beautiful background.

A group of 14 Urban School students spanning three grade levels, two faculty members and I were struck head-on by these contradictions as we travelled the Indian state of Maharashtra from Dec. 12to Dec. 31, 2011. At first I was shocked, then angered, and finally deeply saddened by the extreme poverty I encountered; there were shoeless, unsupervised children wandering trash-laden streets or begging for food, mothers balancing emaciated children on their equally-emaciated hips while begging for baby formula, men earning less than 50 rupees ($1) a day to support three generations of family living under one roof.

Hoping to bring as much of our experience back to Urban as possible, the group members and I took hundreds of photos of the beautiful, the ugly, the thought provoking and the difficult to see. Here is some of what we witnessed (click to see enlarged images).