INDIA

Jamyang Choling

The Jamyang Choling Institute is a school of Buddhist character, located at the foothills of the Himalaya in India, that is part of an organisation of education for women from the most remotes areas of the mountain range.

Founded by an American woman, the organisation has several schools spilt over the whole North of India, some in places of very difficult access, and completely isolated from the rest of the world during the winter.

Many of the students and teachers are exiled originating from Tibet, actually occupied by China. This is the Dharamshala branch, more precisely from Odder, 7 km futher down, situated in an area of great natural beauty, and that counted around forty pupils. I've been six months living in the Institute teaching English, and with other Tibetan Grammar and Philosophy teachers. I have watched the regular day of a community, subject to numerous problems, mutilated in its flesh and exiled in a country that does not belong to them.

The fact of living from donations, and so the lack of everything necessary to education, like books, rooms, blackboards, among other things, arises lots of physical and material problems, but also of communication because of the Tibetan language. With perseverance and a loads of work, I've managed to arrive at a sketch of some result, unfortunately because of the short sojourn of the voluntary teachers, many things should be started off anew, being the bases too fragile to hold a fruitful result.

More could be done, with more time and more means, but even though despite all the difficulties, the result is always positive. To the occasional interested, I've placed the link to the site of Jamyang Choling.

sutras

Sutras. The religious writings in Tibetan language. Volumes of texts that continue to be a theme of debate, study and worship by all the Buddhist society.

three o'clock tea

Around three o'clock, some students brought the "sweet" Indian tea, in contrast with the salty Tibetan tea, made of yak milk and butter, a delicacy for western tastes.

exams

When I arrived, in October, the philosophy exams were going in full swing. To the effect, they have raised a big tent with Tibetan patterns, and were carried in open air in the cool ambiance of the end of the Summer. They consist in writing exams about the Buddhist Mahayana Paramita philosophy proper of Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and North India, and consist also in oral exams, the famous Buddhists debates in which are used all a symbology of gestures and movements relatively violent that are supposed to break and open the doors of the darkest hells and scare the numerous daemons of the Tibetan pantheon.

the old building

The old building where was the kitchen, some of the rooms of the students and also a little room for the telephone. The roof was a disgrace, said they, you could ear the rats during the night, but the worse were the snakes; to find a venomous reptil among the high herbs of the garden was one of the biggest fears of the nuns.

Once appeared, God knows where from, a snake charmer, he was selling medecins and several amulets for various ills. The little friend that came out the basket, when he started to call, was no more than a royal cobra, of the more dangerous that can be, that raises and fixes with a blank expression, a real fascination.

sutras

I've put the sutras out in the sun on the veranda, wrapped around in fabrics of gold and carmine, the winds took care to disperse them at the four cardinal points, as the words of the prayer flags.

lama

The director of the institution, one of the lamas of the highest grade, and of extreme sympathy, here at the oral auditions

lama teacher

The first teacher of philosophy who when I arrived, was there. He would came to reveal a personality with strong powers, he and the main nun were capable of rare actions, aren't we not dealing with Tibetan Buddhism...

the assembly

The assembly in half moon after meeting under the trees of big leaves.

the middle way

One of the biggest problems I've had with my students, some of them from the remotest and poorest places of the Himalayas, was related with our modern society, the western's XXIst century that nothing has to do with a mentality peopled with magic beings and mischievous spirits. I had a lot of problems in explaining what was a traffic light, for example, which was not obvious deep in the Indian jungle.

I've also created an incident when I referred to the fact that the Himalayas "grew" a bit more every year. Being stone inorganic, so not alive how could it grow. I've raised violent protests in the room, the problem was with magma and volcano's. What are volcano's? Once more the lack of information was causing big problems. I think that the power of the Buddha gave a little help to the matter. We have come to a concensus, I've almost been lynched for that one.


The tenwa of 108 elements.

PAKISTAN

Islamabad/Rawalpindi

CHINA

Fujian

A East Southern China province. In front of it, stand Taiwan and nationalist China. Marco Polo was ecstasized with the rich ports. The Dutch too. Those who negotiated with the Portuguese were beheaded. The business has been a short one. Gulangyu, the island in front of Xiamen, sees its automobile's traffic forbide, you have to go on foot or get a bicycle, you can hear playing the piano in between the colonial mansions.

xiamen

The police controls a man in Muslim clothes. Europe so far. I can't remember if I took the picture because of that. Probably. A colonial helmet?

quanzhou

Composition with dynamic lines. A favourite.

Now seriously. Manual labour as we can see it in the third world, the human effort for the harsh survival in its harder and violent side, this stinks sometimes. Sad human condition, labour as a mean of subsistence without any condition, man reduced to the state of the half naked beast of burden. In some places, workers get an exterior layer upon the skin that alters the original colour of the skin, I thought it was their skin colour but no, in India, they are the Untouchables, the system's lowest cast condemned to the most terrifying duties that you can imagine, here they are just miners or migrant workers or not, without any defined function.

In Fujian, we crossed places under construction, in a extension with no comparison, in a gigantic scale, the biggest works I've ever seen. Roads, accesses, blocks, neighbourhoods, all done with no heavy machinery, by hand, thousands of workers, men and women, and probably kids, we've taken hours to cross that , at the Chines scale, the journey seemed to have no end. I've called this part hell on earth, it seemed to me that the entire province was under construction. The work was from Pasolini and the world stinking.

quanzhou

In photographic terms, a daring framing.

Some areas of industrial China look like suburbs with no end, zones of building blocks and more buildings in bad state or always in construction or even unfinished that will never be finished.

Modern India is the same, the third world grows e modernises without anything being planned, without any care, aesthetic care, sanitarian care, an anarchy that will destroy itself.

quanzhou

Even though, the cliché that it still exists pieces of paradise, is also a reality. I like the peace and mood that comes from this picture.

quanzhou

Another daring framing, a foreground plane that nearly hides the views and other happenings in the background.

It always happens a lot of things at the same time without any connection between themselves, that's my Caos' Theory.

gulangyu

The piano in the alleys. The best piano players of China and some of the world.

gulangyu

The ferry boat to Gulangyu.

gulangyu

congwu

The bus driver had no license, he was caught by the police. We stood in the middle of the street, hanging in the middle of nowhere, miles from any city.

congwu

INDIA

Uttar Pradesh - Varanasi

Tagore's India, of the house-boats on the Ganges, and the buffalo's in the water with the kids.



Holy of holies, the city of Varanasi or Benares, as it was called in the old days, a reference mark in Hinduism. A labyrinth of streets and dire alleys where it doesn't matter to loose the way. Sacred cows and oxes rove around freely, and can be found at every corner, leading to strange encounters at the entrance of a temple.
The sadhu or holy man, practises his magical rituals on the shores of the river at dawn. The city at that time bathes in a very peculiar light, which makes it even more magical, and difficult to photograph by boat.



The temple that sinks slowly in the mud. Every mean is attempted to try to stop its disappearing, but it has been still not managed to stop the decay. Unfortunately, it is probably condamned to disappear.



The great mosque of Varanasi. A Muslim community also live in great number in the city, which gives a proper charisma to the place and its mixture of religions.



The ghats, the stairways that lead to the Ganges.



Varanasi is also a poverty and a dirtiness with no comparison, hundreds of lepers, of single-legged, of mutilated and injured and ill people, an army of beggars in the shadow of holiness.
Sometimes, I see them by thousands, in visions, in nightmares, the hands or the rests of their limbs eaten, by leprosy, coming in my direction. The only way out is to run...

There's a local Indian joke which says to be careful with dead corpses when you swim in the Ganges. Against one of the ghats, forgotten in a corner, was a corpse with no life in it,floating in the river. Swollen and covered with red bruises, it looked like a balloon full of water that did not sink. A few ladies of a certain age were looking at the scene, frightened by such discovery.

They say it is not convenient or even not allowed to photograph funerals, which are like everybody knows, cremations done in open air. After walking long the ghats for a while, I came to one of those places where corpses are burnt. A fellow, I suppose one employee in charge of the cremations, took me inside the site, and invited me to take a few shots at the scenes. Being a bit odd at the moment, I always funtion in a bit contrary way to what people may expect, I've declined the offer, and when I noticed, I had my feet in the ashes... The smell that was floating in the air, was a bit acid, a bit bitter... I've also not photographed the floating dead body.

INDIA

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh, as the name tells us, is one of the states that catches the Himalayan range. Probably, one of the greener and more comfortable, where the British during the Raj, already had settled their Summer capital, in the mountains of a cooler climate than the plains.
The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government, as part of the people who followed him, settled there when China invaded Tibet, in the fifties.

They set themselves up in the upper part of Dharamshala, called Mc Leod Ganj, and created there a centre of interest where, unfortunately, it is preserved and evolved the Tibetan culture and tradition better than its country of origin, submit to the forced and destructive Chinese colonisation.

dauladaur

The Daulhadaur, here seen from Odder, is the mountain range that shelters Dharamshala, situated at the foothill of the Himalayas, which decides the end of the Indian plain.
The Daulhadaur and the Kangra valley is one of the places of special beauty that have marked my memory. During six months, it was the scenery, I had at waking up.

odder

An end of an afternoon at the vilage of Odder. I used to sit at the balcony and enjoy the clouds of hundreds of green parrots, fooling around noisily in the air and the trees.

odder

The little temple dedicated to Shiva near the tea stall, where a group of habitués used to gather, on the road that leads to Kangra. Banners of the BJP were seen in the jungle, at the time in power, the nationalist party of mussolinian inspiration.

kangra

The bazaar of Kangra, around the imposing temple, was a nice surprise early in the morning, its streets filled with vendors and the respective paraphernalia of Hindu cult objects.

daulhadaur

daulhadaur

pir panjal

The Pir panjal is another of the mountainous ranges that can be seen from Himachal Pradesh, here from Dalhousie.

INDIA

Uttar Pradesh

The Holy Journey started when I left the Institute of Dharamshala and decided to rove accross India, to realise a voyage through several sacred sites of Hinduism and Budism. A route that would end only in Beijing, in China, a few months later.

I've exclusively used overland means of transportation, in an attempt to see more and closer as possible the various Asian countries that I've crossed. I could have lasted longer, and seen more, but due to problems and unforeseens that always appear on the uncertain road, I had to jump scales.

I could also had gone directly to the destination, but it is necessary to see what it is intended, as I understood in Ladakh: if travel to see and live the places you cross, which seems to be the motive why you travel, or simply to get to a destination, no matter the way how you accomplish it.

haridwar

Haridwar is situated at the point where the Ganges leaves the Himalayas. It's a place where numerous superior forces converge, a power-place, as there are a few in India. And so, worshipped by Hindus, and a destination of constant pilgrimages, coming from all the subcontinent. Some say that Rishikesh, located at a few miles away, is more interesting being the capital of yoga, being cooler and more relaxed, but I think in my personal opinion that Haridwar is livelier, more human and more Indian. By the way, I've had some troubles with youngsters for taking pictures, the place being a holy and sacred site, and therefore extremely touristic. It is no more than a freak-centre where hippies and derivatives gather, coming from the whole world, in a symbiosis of peace, love and brotherhood. Oh! The Beatles also have been there.



Back to Haridwar, the sun is heavy inasmuch as India, and the Ganges rushing headlong. Thousands of pilgrims meet here to bathe in the river, the many religious Indian sects all worship the purifying Ganges, not so pure at some places.

The ghats are the stairs that enter into the river and where the devotees pile up.



Spring doesn't properly exist in India, in April, May, temperatures already climb up to forty and a few degrees, at nine in the morning, which can be terrible in some places.

I join the crowd, I can't resist, I dive.







At other spots of the city, the Ganges is fast, and at the end of the afternoon, people lay blankets down across the floor and sleep right there on the shores of the river, as rocked by the flux.



The houses with boat entrances and yards.