Finally I am back from a rather long, gruelling, educating, and in the end, humbling shoot.
Three weeks of criscrossing India, three weeks of Delhi belly, three weeks of conning yourself to believe today is going to be less hot and humid than yesterday. Three weeks of asking myself there must be another, even easier, way of making a living. Three weeks of bonding between three people that will hopefully last a lifetime or at least another such shoot.
Three weeks of watching and chronicling, from rather close quarters, the inequities of Indian caste system, an evil that is so difficult to uproot simply because it is so widespread.
They were also three most memorable weeks of meeting some awesome people working in the most awful conditions. Paul, Arun, Wilson, Manjula, Satish, Indira, Durgam and many, many others. Meeting any one of them is a very special experience. Meeting all of them in a span of three weeks was rather overwhelming.
At the end of such an experience, it is difficult to measure -- or even choose -- what are you taking home with you. For me, and I suspect with my two friends as well, it will be a pair of eyes that belong to a seven-year-old boy we met in Patna.
A boy who has my father's name and reminded me of my son the moment I set my eyes upon him. A boy who was locked up in a dark, stinking toilet for a whole day by his own school teacher because he, son of a musahar (rat eater), had dared to use the school toilet!
His innocent, haunting, traumatised eyes have followed me the past few weeks. Until someone somewhere finds an answer to the unasked questions those eyes haven't yet quite articulated, I would be ashamed to use words like "great" or "modern" to describe a nation that still condemns, simply by virtue of their birth, 160 million of its citizens to a life of untouchability.
Three weeks of criscrossing India, three weeks of Delhi belly, three weeks of conning yourself to believe today is going to be less hot and humid than yesterday. Three weeks of asking myself there must be another, even easier, way of making a living. Three weeks of bonding between three people that will hopefully last a lifetime or at least another such shoot.
Three weeks of watching and chronicling, from rather close quarters, the inequities of Indian caste system, an evil that is so difficult to uproot simply because it is so widespread.
They were also three most memorable weeks of meeting some awesome people working in the most awful conditions. Paul, Arun, Wilson, Manjula, Satish, Indira, Durgam and many, many others. Meeting any one of them is a very special experience. Meeting all of them in a span of three weeks was rather overwhelming.
At the end of such an experience, it is difficult to measure -- or even choose -- what are you taking home with you. For me, and I suspect with my two friends as well, it will be a pair of eyes that belong to a seven-year-old boy we met in Patna.
A boy who has my father's name and reminded me of my son the moment I set my eyes upon him. A boy who was locked up in a dark, stinking toilet for a whole day by his own school teacher because he, son of a musahar (rat eater), had dared to use the school toilet!
His innocent, haunting, traumatised eyes have followed me the past few weeks. Until someone somewhere finds an answer to the unasked questions those eyes haven't yet quite articulated, I would be ashamed to use words like "great" or "modern" to describe a nation that still condemns, simply by virtue of their birth, 160 million of its citizens to a life of untouchability.
1 comment:
Welcome back, my favourite blogger. Missed you and your postings. Enjoyed reading the latest one. You seem to have had quite a trip. Isn't it ironical that Dalit persecution is so in your face, yet quite often we tend not to notice it? Or may be we have taught oueselves not to notice it.
Haven't spoken to you in ages. One day let's catch up. Looking forward to hearing your stories of your travels.
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