In many ways, our recent trip to India was one of the most challenging of my life. Having only previously been to India to visit family I was unprepared for how overwhelming an experience it is to visit there.
The smells, both fragrant and vile, are overwhelming. The sounds; bird song, music and car horns ( thousands and thousands of them ) are overwhelming. So is the appalling poverty and staggering beauty.
It's so overwhelming that by the end of the trip my bride and I were convinced we had no need to visit again. In the four weeks since our return however, India has worked its magic. Now we're talking about plans for our next trip.
This image was made in Varanasi ( if you are a hipster you will remember it was Banares when you last visited ) on the fourth day of our trip and represents a microcosm of my experiences there. The Hindu man pictured is making morning devotions in the Ganges river, The Ganges or 'Ganga' is sacred for its whole length but is most especially so in Varanasi. It is said that to die and be cremated in Varanasi on its banks breaks the cycle of Hindu reincarnation and transports you to heaven.
It appears to be an intensely private moment yet as with India itself, nothing is as it seems. Around this one devout soul are literally thousands of people making the same devotion, either in groups or as this gentlemen is, alone in peace.
With a population of 1.2 billion people, 60 million of whom do not have running water, anything other than a self created sense of privacy is a luxury for most. When I processed this image, I looked at the garbage on the bank ( and its everywhere in India ) and made the conscious decision to leave it in the image. The garbage and the man's quiet devotion both truly represent India.
I don't think the garbage detracts from the grace of this man's moment or the grace of India herself. I feel privileged to have documented a small, private part of that grace here.
