One Day in Tajgoan: “My Bangladesh" Photo Series (1)

Railway Slum Area, Tajgaon, Dhaka, 25 February 2020

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)

This is definitely one of the photographs that I love most, from the first moment I took it, to the point of having no doubts when I had to choose the first image to talk about Dhaka. 

Although this is not a photo that is limited to Bangladesh only, but also talk about Asia and South East Asia. It's also a story of selection between two photos.

But let's take a step back. Where are we?

The photo was taken in the industrial area of Tajgaon: a slum that is strecthed along the sides of a railroad tracks. You arrive in the Tajgaon area, in the outdoor market of Tejturi Bazar, and then you enter the train station and from there you go along the railroad tracks. On both sides of the rails, there are piled of wooden and plastic houses, where almost all people from other rural areas of Bangladesh live. 

Sadly, nothing different from what I have seen for years in Jakarta. But this is what I was looking for. Always seeing it only from the car or the CNGs (the mini green cage scooters used as taxis in Dhaka), I asked my young photographer friend, Rana, to accompany me. I wanted to see these typical areas of the Asian metropolis with my own eyes, and he brought me here. 

We started walking on the tracks, with men and women in front of us carrying wicker baskets on their heads. 

What we meet there is the same as in other places, only the language and the clothes changed: faces marked by difficulties, often serious and hostile, with wild children and women hard as stones; many of them smiling, but always a little wary.

With trains speeding less than a meter away, you have to wait still while the train runs nearby. Then, as soon as it passed, everything returns as before in an instant, with the children playing on the tracks and the varied humanity continuously walks carrying baskets of vegetables on their heads or shopping bags.

These places are certainly among the most interesting and challenging from photographic point of view. A lot of experience and psychology is needed. 

The biggest challenge is to make the differences between us and them as subtle as possible: that is, between a white European photographer who walks for an hour and leaves, and the people who remains to live in those barracks with the train rattling in distance of an outstretched arm.

What I call the “zoo effect”: going on a photo-safari among the misery of people to take home the photographs that move emotion and increase the likes on social profiles. This is a terrible feeling, and I try to prevent it from happening in any way.

First of all, by trying to talk with people (knowing the language is a fundamental requirement for me in every country I visit), having physical contact, laughing with children and showing photos. 

Trying to “stay”.

Even if it's more as a way to heal your own soul, than to response to a reality that happens in a clear way. The only relief is to have the answer, at least in your conscience, and to know with what intention you go to certain places. 

But this is a really complex topic. For my part, I want to see with my eyes, always, and try to be as close as possible to the people I photograph.

However, as we walked, I saw at one point a woman holding something in her hands come out of a hut. Her face was smiling, though very shy. I looked at what she was holding, and I was impressed: a book and a dirty doll. Then I started to photograph her hands—after I waited for her to cover the choli with ulna for respect. Two, three times. Then, after I realized that she was starting to be embarrassed, I went away.

As often happens, you are fully aware of what you photographed only later when you see the photos in silence, in your room, in front of the computer screen. 

I immediately understood that more than showing the woman, the image of her hands was more significant. The contrast is incredible, really those strikes of luck that happen occasionally in street photography. And then, it is better to let everyone fill what they see with their own interpretation. It is much better to let the photographs speak for themselves. 

But this is also a way of sharing our feelings; don’t take away from the photo what will always remain wrapped in its symbolic charm.

Those dark-skinned hands are like coal, venous, gnarled fingers holding books and a white, blond doll with blue eyes and dirty dress; the plastic incarnation of the western myth: the purity and charm of whiteness and the splendor of turquoise eyes like the sky.

I have two photos, the first with the hands that are about to close on the doll and the next with the hands that hold it.

Thinking about the people who live in that slum—just like many slums in Indonesia, the Philippines, India—I thought the first image I chose was much stronger, because those dark hands have a desire to be able, in the future, to reach that dream of a white West like an angel from the eyes of the sea. But for one who has visited those places, has seen how they live, he knows in his heart that the doll's dress will always be dirty, and the fingers that hold the doll will remain a painful utopia. 

This image could be a metaphor for the huge gap that still exists between the poor populations of Asia and our immaculate and white well-being. But, unfortunately, it's not a metaphor. It's the reality that you meet one step away from the train that runs fast, careless, throws an eye and goes away.

What every photographer, and human being, should avoid when walking in certain places.

Dedicated to the woman with the doll.