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Utopia

16/10/2014

 
Picture
Early morning.

Already a warm and wet Pale sky, no clouds, no wind.

Security guards watch us approaching the main gate.
Stare at us with respect.
Open the gates.
Smile respectfully, tilting the head.
No word.

That’s the way the day begins, each time. That’s the way the day ends up, each time.
Stepping through the gate, you already know how different the view and the mood will be.

Pale sky, no clouds, no wind.

That’s what remains after leaving the secure walls of that foreign and small world.
Under the same sky, a world apart.
Smells in the air intoxicating your lungs.
Undefined mixture of too strong essences from this land.
Pollution, animals, rubbish, garbage, litterm humans.
All together.
A punch in your stomach, a slap in your face.

The smell of poverty.
The harsh sensation of lives whom only reason is

surviving till the new day.
Standing in front of the gate, waiting for a taxi.
Sort of.
Always late, always dirty.

No way to communicate, no way to talk, no way to share, no way interact, no way to explore.
The eyes as the only weak possibility in catching a glimpse of humanity and behind those unreadable faces
Standing in front of the gate, waiting for a taxi. Looking around, trying to understand, soaking the mind with such a different world.

Under the same sky, a world apart.

Disorder and mess I could call the never ending mixture of rubbish, waste materials, rusty bicycles, noisy scratched cars, buses too old and filled with people, even on the top.
Chaos of man, women, children, animals. In the road and everywhere, each one living his own life as no other were there.
Bunch of people locally aware of themselves and completely separated from the rest.

Men digging the road just outside the walls.

Bunch of men preparing the concrete with old tools, sometimes with bare hands.

Bunch of women helping those men. Carrying materials on their head, slowly, continuously, silently.
Heavy bricks, water, water and heavy bricks

Bunch of children buzzing around without any control, helping the adults, their own way.
Not sure this is a game, for sure it is a work. An heavy one, again and again.

Middle class children collected together under the tight control of middle class mothers.
Serious, good looking, well dressed.
Confident.
The future is just a time to come, no real troubles to carry clouds on a clean sky.
All of them standing still, out of the main gate.

Static representation of the wealth, they are well beyond the basic steps of surviving.
The small group standing in the middle of the mess.

All others moving, talking, sweating, working, maybe dreaming a rest they cannot have, certainly pushing hard on the harsh wall of the life.

No intersection between those groups, no one really seeing or watching the other.
You can understand this looking to the eyes pointing beyond and simply passing through the people in between.
Children are still different in that they are already in a well defined path.
Education is called.
Not necessarily from the school.
The basic one is the belonging to a group.
From here you learn how to behave, how to feel the world and yourself, how to act.
This is what makes you confident or not.

Looking now to these small groups you see well how the smallest one has really a future, a relative possibility to grow up in a wealthy and secure harbor, while the other is simply stuck into the parent’s limbo.
No way to escape.
No way.
You can see the cages here, open for someone, close for all the others.
That’s life here, that’s how the story is in this land of slick smells.
The contamination of the western civilization have had a small impact till now, at least in these borders of New Delhi.
Bangalore is different, for sure, but Bangalore itself is something too specific and peculiar to really count.
The culture of classes is so strong here, the religion and its concept of acceptance of the human condition and the original role you have given, that is really impossible to think to a different organization, a possible way to take away so many people from the strongest poverty.
This is really what poverty means.
These are the Parias. These are the untouchables.
This is India, despite newspapers articles and interviews and studies.
This is India, the new economy player in the far east area, the new giant-to-be.
Military and economic giant.
Facing the unreliable Pakistan and the mighty China.
This nation keeps moving despite the culture, the mentality, the limitations she has.
A big banner at the entrance of the road, against the pale sky.
Nothing around but the burden of living
Just one word written in huge letters visible from far.

Utopia.

Lo spessore delle cose

13/9/2012

 
Picture
Armonia ed eleganza, di questo parla la foto. Le due donne e il muro sullo sfondo, i suoi colori netti a stagliarsi e fare da contrappeso con la leggerezza e ariosità degli abiti femminili.
Il gioco di luce sembra carezzare la ragazza sulla destra e il senso di intimità che la donna seduta sembra avere, con il suo capo leggermente ruotato e la sua postura insieme elegante e rilassata., definiscono un tono pacato e intimo, un ritmo lento e distaccato dal resto del mondo.
Le due donne insieme, bilanciate nell’economia globale dell’immagine a formare un insieme gradevole e piacevole. Potresti parlare di armonia ed eleganza, potresti aggiungere altre parole quali senso di pace, intimità, misticismo, distacco dal mondo, chissà quali altre ancora.

Illusione.


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The gate of Eden

12/9/2012

 
Picture
Una sbarra rossa con strisce bianche all’ingresso, quattro poliziotti con manganello e la divisa di una delle tante compagnie per la sicurezza. Il taxi rosso scuro si avvicina lentamente sobbalzando sugli speed-breaker che interrompono la strada, ed ho tutto il tempo di osservare quel pezzo di mondo.
Gli agenti della sicurezza sono molto giovani, anche se è difficile definirne l’età, magri ed agili ma non certo alti. Seppure in divisa non hanno un vero e proprio aspetto marziale. Hanno si la faccia dura, il volto chiuso di chi è abituato a gestire situazioni difficili, ma c’è comunque qualcosa che li rende imperfetti come militari. Un accenno di indiana indolenza e apatia che contrasta con il ruolo che dovrebbero svolgere e l’’atteggiamento dovrebbero avere. Non per questo credo siano meno duri e violenti, anzi.
Il muro di cinta di mattoni scuri percorre l’intero perimetro di questo blocco di palazzi.  Il check point con la sbarra rossa e i poliziotti come unico punto di accesso. All'’interno del muro, palazzine di una decina di piani, costruite come nel peggiore dei gusti europei: appartamenti piccoli, con piccole finestre e minuscoli balconi incassati nella struttura dei palazzi e coperti da panni stesi ad asciugare.

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Brave new world

6/9/2012

 
Picture
Ascolta il linguaggio nascosto di questa terra, le sue arie, i suoi motivi cantilenati. Ascolta la voce sommessa che ti giunge dalle strade e dai vicoli laterali, il chiasso assurdo e dirompente di un traffico inatteso e di per se stesso grandioso, quasi un inno all’umano disordine e chaos.

Leggi tra le righe degli sguardi, ora fieri ora umili, di uomini e donne così diversi da te, lascia che la luce calda di questa sera d’oriente scriva pagine di vita e storia ben più profonde e vere di ogni pagina scritta, di ogni racconto, di ogni storia. Respira a fondo l’odore aspro di quest’aria inquinata di odori e di esperienze, di attese e di sofferenze mescolate ed unite a diversi e differenti ragioni ed amori, nuovi modi di capire e amare, forgiare le proprie giornate trascorse all’alba di una nazione forse solo ora veramente consapevole di se. Ascolta, guarda, osserva, senti e fatti trascinare, fatti corrompere da tutto questo.
Lascia le tue convinzioni e giudizi, allontana le considerazioni che sempre ti accompagnano, abbandona per un attimo il tuo essere e il tuo mondo.
Di nuovo, ascolta, guarda, osserva, senti e fatti trascinare, fatti corrompere da tutto questo.

Feeling alien

27/8/2012

 
Immagine
Every morning covering the same old route with its daily stops.
Every morning catching a glimpse of the same faces in the same places.
Scrutinizing each other discreetly, maybe with curiosity or some other feelings, unspoken.
Questions not asked, answers not given.
Stopping at the surface of things, looking for an entry point, a ray of hope which could open a new horizon.
Different codes, making any access impossible.
Only one more second before you go on.
Fleeting sensations ina different world.
Feeling alien.


Ogni mattina lo stesso percorso, le stesse fermate.
Ogni mattina agganciare per un attimo gli stessi sguardi nello stesso luogo.
Studiarsi con discrezione, forse curiosità, chissà cosa di altro.
Domande non fatte, risposte non date.
Fermarsi all’esterno delle cose cercando in esse un punto di entrata, uno spiraglio dal quale poter almeno vedere.
Differenti codici, nessuna possibilità di accesso, nessuna. Solo qualche secondo e poi via.
Sensazioni sfuggenti di un mondo diverso.

Sentirsi straniero

    Author

    ​Stories and novels, stories and shades of words. Sapphire can be a voice, a whisper, a night talk.  Colours in words, words merged and melted with pictures. Words as colours, words as shapes sometimes overlapping with the visual experience.  A different way to see the world or, maybe, just the very same way using different tools and finding different paths. ​

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  • Home
  • The Blogs
    • The sapphire blog
    • The crimson blog
    • The emerald blog
    • Wordpress space
  • Stories
    • TanzanEyes
    • The Masai girl
    • Rwanda
    • 3 Years later
    • India
  • Patterns of life
    • Schwetzingen
    • Silver in the morning
    • The other city
    • HumanNotHuman
    • Fading out
    • Those foggy days
    • StreetNoise
    • As the night gently talks
    • Assisi in Black and White
    • Praising the absence
    • Caesura
    • Convolution
    • Linee e forme
    • Be like water
    • Impulses
    • Fuori luogo
  • People
    • Juliet
    • Street portraits
  • About