India was in the top three of my bucket list,
so when I got the chance to explore the Golden Triangle, all I could think about was counting down the minutes.
I hardly slept in the days before departure and when I arrived in Delhi, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was head over heels, switching lenses, documenting the unknown world by the minute, afraid that if I didn’t, I would miss something.
India is the place where
photographers feel like they are walking in heaven. (while on the ground, at best just stomping in cow dung)
Huge, beautiful buildings, a striking contrast between beauty and squalor. Delhi’s population of nearly 20 million is a gourmet meal for the camera, and the sight of so many destitute people and children is a tough push for the sensitive European.
In the first two days, I wanted to help almost everyone, so if six children came across from me, I changed rupees for six at the corner orchard. As much as I prepared myself before the trip, it was there, in Delhi, that I realised that you can’t really prepare for this.
I felt like a movie star, every minute they were holding out their phones and wanting to take selfies with me. It was good and very bad..
On the first day at the hotel, one of the (otherwise extremely kind and humble) staff said to me, “Dear mister, you are not a tourist in our country, you are a guest, because we like Europeans very much. How beautiful, isn’t it?
I had a heart full of gratitude, and I was already telling myself to go to hell, happy, don’t cry your mouth off that you could have more for your money because you work like shit.
BUT! Sadly, I was wrong.
India is the place where
the white people are stared at like a miracle, and where the cows are human, at least they walk across the pavement from you as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Anyway, the guide told me that the locals regard the bocis as their mother, so it might as well be ‘clear’. I photographed the first sunrise in the lobby of a beautiful church.
At six in the morning, two handsome guys at the entrance told me that the entrance fee was 800 rupees, and I said that it was cheap, thank you! After half an hour, one of them came up to me and asked me how long I wanted to take photos because the half hour was up. I said to him, man! what half an hour? Well, the sun’s not even up yet..
I gave him another 800, and got a little piece of paper with the date handwritten on it, saying I could come back with it for another 12 hours.
I thanked him, we high-fived and headed back to the hotel, where the guide told me that this beautiful church doesn’t charge admission…
India is the place where
the European man is a target. In Jaipur I had a very nice young guy as my driver, sent to me by the four-star hotel.
At dawn he took me over the city to witness the most beautiful sunrise.
Tiny green parrots zigzagged in the beautiful light, peacocks walked around me as I photographed the pink old town of Jaipur from above.
It was the greatest feeling of freedom, really. I told the boy about my life, he told me he was married, showed me his beautiful wife and I told him all about my Budapest.
I wanted a casual outfit, the locals call it a ‘sherwani’ and I ask the newbie where I can get one at a good price.
He made me promise not to shop at the center because I’d get ripped off, and better not to go to the bazaar, and he’d take me to a private place in the afternoon where his buddy sews for Indians.
I have run into a lot of shitty people in my life, but I still had the confidence, which ended up with this very nice and hospitable boy and his friend who made the dress trying to sell me a sherwani for the equivalent of 60,000 forints, which was a fraction of the price and quality of the tourist places.
That was the point when I reassessed everything, the moment when I told myself enough of the directness, the generosity and I’d better break the English because it’s not good for my ‘kind’ to have a trusting relationship here.
With difficulty, I managed to become a primitive and heartless tourist.
India is the place where
where skinny puppies die in the scorching sun among the red bricks.
My four-legged friends sleep with me, my children, my saviours. Of course, it doesn’t have to be the norm… but to have dead puppies being eaten by carrion flies next to the rickshaw line is anything but rational. I was only happy for the little wild pigs, because they were playing happily in the knee-deep garbage, they really are happy.
India is the place to see. To drag yourself down to earth and wish yourself good morning. Thank you for letting me be a part of it, I’m grateful to have made it here, I promise I’ll carry the reward for a lifetime, and I got what I came for. A thousand-coloured portfolio of a world unknown to me.
But India is a place I would not never want to return to again. #namaste
PS: the above is my experience and reflects my sole opinion.
