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In March 2001, I flew off to New Deli, India. With a rucksack, several rolls of film and a few things I set off with 15 days of freedom ahead of me. The shock, India, hit me as soon as I stepped off the plane. The sounds, the smells, the light, the temperature, the cars and the languages all around me, all were utterly different to everything I had previously know. It was just after sunset when I landed. The next morning, having been briefed by a contact that had met me at the airport, I embarked on a voyage of discovery of the Indian Capital.
My first ride in a Rickshaw (a light three wheeled hooded vehicle drawn by a scooter). I bought my train tickets to visit Rajasthan. The craziest part of Indian closest to Delhi, where I could completely lose myself and immerse myself in India and its heady chaos. During the first few minutes of my train journey I was confronted with yet another shocking image.
There were precarious inhabitants the entire length of the railway tracks - men and women who collected the plastic bags and plastic bottles for recycling. Some of who were collecting the bottles on the ground just a few centimetres from the train lines. The presence of an actual cesspit on the train could not have attracted less attention from the Indians present.
Direction: Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar, Jaisalmer, the lost city in the Thar Desert. In Pushkar, one of the most important Hindu religious sites in Indian, the voyage changed into a pilgrimage to the “ghats” where the faithful performed religious absolutions, these thousand year old rituals that allows man to commune with the gods thanks to the water. A country where a photographer is more at ease through the medium of colour than black and white.
Autor : Vincent Hilaire