the other latitude

Just yesterday on the way to ending the "tristes tropiques" , the author popped at me the very same question : what is that makes one go , what is the quest about and is there any quest at all ?

Chatwin brought in into the categories the men that just go off to buy cigarettes; question is the same what does it spring ont that chair that makes them go

I look back at my pictures and everything is there is also in this place right now, just next door ...
see the (supposedly ) grandad in mumbai ..

easy to wonder if the shot aims at recognising a familiar smile, real or just longed for... easy but not enough as an answer

last year i was equally hypnotised and soothed from the day heat and walk by looking at the fishermen coming back to Puri shore,
through those hands , just lingering a little bit more one can read the rough fight with the sea to master those waves and pluck what is hidden beneath,
those large fingers so much more powerful and above all so much wider than what the fish can fill for...
the net their life is trapped in, is this beautiful lacework of nerves and sweat , wind and sunsets, (or maybe just like any other lads , babies crying and children running to them from the land, sweet smiles and small pots bubbling at night ).

Some years back, when i was wandering  in the north of portugal, I had come across the same interest for other fishermen.



And in the backyards of that nice sleepy town, one can see the building cranes and tendency to build fish tanks to store consumers in so common everywhere

Irony is that the very same place i grew up is historically one fishermen town ...





This town is very close  to rome, "fiumicino", the joke is that half inhabitated by fisherment and other half by people working in the airport
(ok let's explore the air background in another post)
i cannot remember to have ever grown an interest in those fishermen, being interested in their lives... was i without realising?
was i missing the tools to read that world?

last yesterday i went back to look for those where the boats come back in the fiumicino canal , they sold out everything for 1 euro a kg ( !) ...it was a kind of justice paid to the neighborhoods i left orphaned from my attention eventhough i went so far away to be charmed by other fellow men of the sea...

i walked back and back close to the line of the fishermen, just wondering that i had never paid any attention to them before when i lived 10 minutes away.







so life drifts on here in fiumicino as everywhere on another christmas eve

BISHNUPUR AND THE TERRACOTTA TEMPLES

 In the beautiful countryside in West Bengal , amidst cultivated land there is an ancient capital studded with several amazing terracotta temples. The temples have a very unusual shape, but what is most impressive is the terracotta decoration they are laden with.
Bishnupur fame and glory must have lasted a couple of centuries. Enough to leave us with these masterpieces and  short enough to get forgotten in everybody memories.
When i was on the train heading there, the guys sharing the same compartment with me got up I do not know how many times to ensure that I really really meant to get off there. They were indian and could not recall anything worthy located in Bishnupur.
So i got off late in the evening. And I woke up in the next morning in a fairy tale, beautiful temples and gentle villagers . No fuss , no hassles just the pleasure of being in the country . Being surrounded by those works of art was just a detail.

dehra dun

haridwar and rishikesh

 

the stillness of this moment was surreal when i think that just below the brigde in the water so many people were bathing 

 the sacred city of haridwar in the heat of summer was hallucinogenic, looking at the people going up and down in the water almost all at the same tempo made me feel as if it was the ground swinging

rishikesh , windy bridge at nighttime

 ^packed and jammed at nmidday

 light and sweetnes in the morning promise