Category: India
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A child is born
every quarter of a second. Happy Christmas. Photo of the week: Christmas, Mumbai, India 2014
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At home in Kumaon
A row of old village houses; the ground floor reserved for the animals, the people upstairs. All built, cut and painted true to tradition. But times have changed. In the background we see a glimpse of a new building, constructed with brick and cement. And so the charm and beauty of the old is gradually…
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Cow lifting game
What to do when a cow is lying down in the middle of the path, blocking the way through and in no way willing to get up and move? Such cow stubbornness is rare but here it happened. Only combined forces – and lots of fun – could bring help. And only then this patiently…
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Bhang
Yes, it grows in the wild in the Kumaon hills. I’m talking about the Cannabis sativa, the Indian hemp plant. The seeds get blown in the wind or are taken and dropped by birds and so, all of a sudden, you can have some hemp plants growing in your garden. Local farmers may – unofficially…
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Tap tap!
That is what you hear in the pine forest when the man who collects the resin from the trees fixes the cone back on the stem. Then he moves to the next tree, empties the cone, puts it back, tap tap, and he goes on to the next. The resin is used for making turpentine.…
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Like mother, like daughter
Human life may have changed in many respects since prehistoric times, but at a certain level, the level of basic needs for the organism to survive, we are still the same, and not much different from other animals for that matter. We need food to eat, we need water to drink. For millions of people…
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Lakhudiyar
Already in prehistory humans must have been enchanted by the natural beauty of the Kumaon hills. They have left their traces, as we can see for example in the rock shelter the board on the photo speaks so nicely about. Lakhudiyar can be found between present day Almora and Jageshwar. It looks as if the…
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The Kumaon hills
66 % of the world’s population will live and work in cities by 2050. In India too, rapid urbanization is a continuing trend. In the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand where I spend most of my time when in India, I see the other side of this drift to the towns and cities: a steady exodus from the…
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The woman in the trees
A sound was echoing through the forest but I couldn’t make out where it came from. Then, all of a sudden, I saw a nymph moving high up in the oak trees. Surprised I called out: “What are you doing there?” She gave me a big smile and shouted back: “Je fais une chose tout…
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Legs in unison
Legs in unison The central image in the picture is one of 196 photos, fit in wooden screens, that together formed the installation by Dayanita Singh at the Kochi Biennale 2014. The Exhibition Guide says that the installation “is a year’s work presented as a series of interconnected movements in life and thought (…)”. For the viewer…
καιρός remembered 