The page you are now reading, maybe a bit too enthusiastically called 'Fotojournalism', will be hosting in the years to come the most significant square centimeters of our journeys. Here we will lay down all our work, dreams, stories, trips, everything we'll do while holding a camera in our hands - and that's what basically happens during most of our spare time. We will take you along on our travels and guide you inside the life of the characters we’ll meet along the way.
But on the long run, it is up to you to send us back your opinions, appreciations or
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A timid scratch of India
I do not perceive this world anymore as being an infinite place, with far countries and continents that one could only reach in a moment of contemplation. Everything is here and now and can be all gone through in a second. The years of dreaming, of waiting for the right moment are gone. Now we have the chance to grab them all.
In the same spirit, the relationships between us and the way we communicate have been totally changed. That's why here, we will try to offer you, together with the photos, something we have rediscovered with each of our trips: the magic of the human being.
I remember I took my first “trip” to India many years ago, during the times when Maitrey was writing back her own vision of India to Eliade, opening up the gates to
a totally unknown world, a new and strange way of living. Back then, in the 8th grade, my mind was dreaming about seeing that world and knowing its people,
the secret places and hidden cultures. Closely to when I first fell in love with this country, there was this other book my mother gave me, "In search of the secret India" which came and sealed forever my attraction for this place.
The decisive moment for me was when I realized time is unforgiving and there is no saving God that will come and transform my dreams into reality. The only one who could do it is me. This and a bit of courage and curiosity were the main causes for Peru, India and with God's help all the places that will follow.
Only a few days ago, I realized why it took me over three months to start working on the pictures from our Indian trip: even if we did come back from the trip in December, it was my heart who was still left there behind...:).
Before starting out travel through India, there is something important that I need to say. For those of you whom, without being there or due to different rumored sources, believe that India is that country where if one goes, would only find poorness and diseases, well, I would like to let you know that you are wrong.
I feel I owe this paragraph to all the Indian people who opened their homes to us and showed us their hospitality - thank you, my friends!
I will not present our trip in a particular chronological order, 'cause things just haven’t got anything to do with...order, out there! Or at least not with the order as we knew it. I actually can't express all these in writing, just try to imagine this sub-continent like a huge spiritual and pre-historical creature which once you get to know, it completely overwhelms your senses, knocking down your well made plan, only showing itself the way it wants, and not the way you wanted to see it!
That's why our entire well prepared plan was blown out the moment we laid our foot on the Mahatma Gandhi international airport: our next domestic flight connection should have been in couple of hours, but we wrongly booked it for the previous day, completely messing up the time zone differences...:) We are not the type of fellow travelers to make this kind of mistakes..., no! It was India who interfered, waiting for us with its own plan.
You could now be thinking "so what, you just take the next flight, right!?" Well, no! In a country with 1.2 billion people, every single place on a train, bus, airplane, or even bicycle is booked well ahead.
Imagine yourself there, with no hotel, no bed to sleep in after 19 hours of flying and also with no plan...! What could you do in a situation like this? The answer could be only one: you enjoy the moment :)! Let the flow take you, whatever happens is with a purpose you will find out later!
And that was a good reason for me to start the story about India with the end of our trip.
The first place to go is one of the most blindingly colorful, chaotic and inspiring scenes on earth, the city of Varanasi. Also known as Benares, this is one of the world's oldest inhabited cities, and one of the holiest places in India.
Varanasi is even older than itself. It's a place of spirituality, of prayers, a place where life shakes death's hand. Gange, the holy river coming down from the Himalayas, is the soul of the city, everything here being connected to her, the Mother Ganga. This is the place where Buddhism religion was founded, containing also the most sacred pilgrimage places for Hindus.
We’ve spent almost five days in this city, and even if it was at the end of the holiday, there were still a lot of things to be amazed with. This is where India reveals its naked splendor, overwhelming you with its densely crowded streets, crazy sounds, beggars, priests, workers, smells and aromas, all mixed up in a feeling very difficult to describe. You either love it or you hate it from the first day! I've just simply loved it!
If you'd only have one week to spend in India, than this is the place to go to. It will be enough to make you realize that you're on the other side of the planet, where life gets different definitions and values, very far away from the so convenient and boring "all inclusives" we all got used to.
The life of the city starts to swarm much before the sunrise, as people here, locals but also pilgrims coming from all over India, begin their praying and bathing in the holy water early in the night.
They travel a long way from different corners of India to wash away a lifetime of sins or to burn their loved ones and spread their ashes over the water.
When the sun rises over the holy river, the spirituality is at its most dramatic moment. People get down into the water and praise their Gods.
Have you ever looked at the Sun, thanking Him for appearing one more time enlightening your day? I believe very few people have ever thought of doing this and we take its appearance for granted, like many other things; people you see here in the water don't do it. They praise Him and offer their respects to the Sun.
For many of them, Varanasi is not just a place to come to, pray and go back home, it is the place where they come and wait for their soon arriving death. It is the place where their bodies will be burned to ashes, becoming one with the nature and Mother Ganga.
Hindu priests, meditating and praying over the water.
Mahatma Ghandi, a legendary leader of India. His strongest weapon to conquer independence of the country was the non-violence attitude against the English regime. His icon face is celebrated on every wall in India.
Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying in the Golden Temple (located nearby, no photos allowed) releases one's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations.
Do not allow your mind to fall into the so common trap of judging other people for what they do or for what their beliefs are. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest mistakes one could do in these times. Instead of thinking of how dirty and poluted the water is and how could they take a bath in those waters, try better to think the other way around; wonder yourself how strong is their belief in their Gods and how strong is their spirtuality and determination to praise them.
And the effect of all these can be "seen" in something which I failed to photograph: the health and happiness in their souls. Now, if you could have sensed this new perspective of seing things, even if for a tiny second, try switching your life with theirs. Could you? Could you drop everything and be only what you are and not what you wish or believed you are? If not, at least stop judging what you see an start wondering about what you don't see!
Life in Varanasi is not only around praying and spiritual baths. People come here to meet old friends, to take yoga classes, to wash clothes, offer blessing, sell flowers, get a massage, play cricket, wash their buffaloes and improve their karma by giving away to beggars or simply to hang around. Just by walking on the left shore of Gange, you become part of this spectacular theater of life.
If you plan taking a trip this way (giving up the 4 or 5 stars hotels, air conditioned coaches, rigid itineraries well prepared in advance and smiling guides), than you will need to travel on your own and be able to carry your own luggage (in your back-pack), book your own hostels, find your own restaurants and many more. And if you want to be able to pass all these while still enjoying it, than you cannot pack one t-shirt and one pair of underwear for each day. It’s out of the question. You’ll have to use local laundries, which is very convenient, time and weight saving. In Varanasi, we realized it only after, that our clothes were going to be washed in the Gange waters. Should have seen our faces when the laundry men told us "Oh, you came to pick them up too quickly, we just sent them to the river... :)" But now, I'm glad it happened this way, even if unintentionally; I told you, India welcomes you in its own way, not yours. And by the way, they came out even cleaner than in other laundries, really bright! :)
I could not tell you exactly, but these seemed like some kind of praying initiation classes held by experimented priests to people wanting to learn it.
This one in the back was punished for being late.
The tiny flames you see far in the background are from Manikarnika ghat (gate), the main place in Varanasi for burning the bodies of the dead ones. Over two hundred bodies are cremated there everyday, one by one, each with its own fire. Depending on the hierarchy of the cast to which they belong to, the fire was quicker and stronger, and the place better positioned to the river. The ashes from the dead are scattered in the water and they become one with the River. It was not allowed to take photos in that place.
The scene is overwhelming. We visited the place at night and there were 10 or 12 fires, with a strong smell of burnt flash. You could see heads, hands and legs hanging out of the fires and the man in the family watching around them. Women were not allowed, as in the past some of them jumped in alive, following their husbands. Feeling the heat on our skin and faces we suddenly realized that no one was crying. Death is just a passing through, not an end.
Some of the bodies still wear important pieces of jewelry and the only way of finding them was to sift the remaining ashes the next morning. This man found a bracelet.
The bodies of the holy man, pregnant women or people bitten by the cobra, are never burned. They are laid down on the bottom of the river until the water, fish and organisms decompose them. This one in the image was of an important holy man in Varanasi; dead holy man, taken to his last journey to the river. Because of the music and the joyful atmosphere around him, I first thought this was a party, but it proved to be a funeral.
As night approaches the river, life takes on another mood and people prepare for the dancing festivity held each evening at the Dasawamedh Ghat.
A spectacle of dancing, combined with music, praying and fire is held here every evening. Tourists love it and so do the locals. I missed finding out on its symbolism, but it has something to do with Brahma sacrificing here 10 of his horses.
The picture above is the living proof that competition among photographers was pretty harsh up there and I sweat a lot before getting the best angles :)
This is what our perception on Varanasi was, through our cameras and through our mind. It is up to you to go and see it with your own eyes. Going there, if you so wish it, is not difficult at all, just book a plane and let your mind free... that's all you need.
And the Sun again, in a well defined cycle, which leaves you with the feeling that life on these shores behaves in the same way for thousands of years.
In the next episode of our Indian trip (coming shortly :) we'll take you to New Delhi streets to show you how a city with 13 million people looks like.
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We will be back soon,
Namaste :)!
