Humans of India

In 2012 I had the pleasure of traveling around the most amazing country in the world: incredible India. Expectations were high and, probably for the first time in my traveling life, I was not a bit disappointed at the end of the journey. I know it might sound a little bit too much to say it is "the most amazing country in the world", but I also know whoever as been there will understand these words. I was told that India was "very photogenic" and I understood it completely at first glance. I could see the depth in the eyes of almost every Indian person, woman, man or child. It is difficult to describe how deep they look at people. Another thing that impressed me, as a photographer, was the colours that surrounded every situation: it was not easy to take B/W pictures in India, because the colours were so alive... It was the mixture in between the culture, the architecture, the colours, the smell, the light (not the one that comes from the Sun) and the high contrast that Indian society provides to the Westerner's eye that made this travel the most extreme travel of all time so far.

BUDDHISM. These pictures were taken in Bodhgaya (the place where Siddharta Gautama got enlightened) during the Kagyu Molam.

THE KIDS. There is also something funny about the kids: kids in India have the particularity of making you loving them or hating them to the extreme, no middle point.

THE WOMEN. There is something special in the women: they are the silent voices, I didn't hear a woman's voice in the streets in two months traveling. Paradoxically, they are the ones who work the most and whose efforts support the country's subsistence. Besides, they are the human beings that give India its true colour.

THE TRAINS. The nurture of every traveler in India. A place to observe, a place to grow up.

VARANASI. On the first picture you can see the sunrise from the Ganga. On the second one, an Indian man has a sacred and very personal bath after the glorious hour in the mother river.

I wanted to leave this image for the ending, as a closure of a process I had to experience in India. The thing that collapsed me the most was the situation women are captured in. These human beings have lost all their value and it's a lesson of honesty and compassion the way they try, not only to fit in, but to do their best. Their voices are silent, their actions too; but no one can not see them: they are the light of the country, a collective soul awakening from everlasting colours. When I looked at their eyes I could glimpse the significance of the message they instinctively throw to me, and here is the one I throw to you all.

Humans of Morocco

Visitar Marruecos durante el Ramadán es algo que no tiene precio. Si una/o se siente cómoda/o en el choque cultural, probablemente esta sea la situación ideal. Quienes sean aficionadas/os al análisis del comportamiento humano, encontrarán en este país, y durante la época de Ramadán, el momento de lujo. A primera hora del día, y hasta el mediodía, el país está en coma, las personas duermen, estén en pie o no. Y el día permanece tranquilo y sosegado, siendo el/la extranjero/a la fuente de energía de las calles. Al llegar la noche, y bajo el permiso de ingerir todo el alimento que quieran, las caras se transforman, las distancias se acortan y el movimiento renace de donde no lo había. De repente uno/a se encuentra siendo una diminuta mancha en medio de una calle repleta de personas que se mueven incesantemente, en todas direcciones, siendo partícipes de la vida, sabiendo hacia dónde van, y dejando al/la extranjero/a en medio del barullo, delegándolo a ser un simple espectador. El autóctono (sí, hablo en masculino) se libera y muestra ese carácter tan rudo y masculino que, en contraste al de la mañana, adopta un semblante ciertamente algo más agresivo, que no violento. El influjo de actividad y la oposición entre la mañana y la noche, tiñe Marruecos de un aire misteriorso y vampírico, entre lo mediterráneo y lo africano, un manto cultural que absorbe a quien allí se haya, especialmente si es mujer.

Un apartado a parte merecen los peleteros, esos hombres que, bajo el sol hiriente tiñen telas y pieles, doblándose el lomo hora tras horas... En medio de la Medina, el centro neurálgico del submundo urbano, se encuentra este mágico lugar, bello y africanamente barroco, que ahuyenta al olfato pero atrapa a la vista como pocos lugares en el mundo.

Y en Merzouga, una localidad en medio del desierto, las bandas africanas de música gozan de un buen estatus. Recorrí el pueblo bajo la mirada atenta y temerosa de las/os niños. Algo que me enseñó este viaje es que el tatuaje es un arte todavía demasiado exótico para las/os árabes.

Y tuve la oportunidad de ver a los "negros" (como ellos mismos los llaman) tocar en una kashba. La misma en la que uno de ellos me regaló este precioso momento...