Unity of Opposites: "My Bangladesh" Photo Series (5)

Old Dhaka, Sutrapur, Dhaka, 12 February 2020

“At dusk, the rooster announces the dawn; 

at midnight, the shining sun.” (Zen poem)

Walking through the streets of Old Dhaka, before arriving at the Shyam Bazar, which we already talked about in the second photo, I saw a boy playing with a kite in a square in front of an old building apparently abandoned and falling.

I entered the porch of the building and started photographing the boy playing from behind, between the rubbish and the dilapidated buildings. I love these contrasts. Certain moments in Dhaka are like the bakarkhani, the typical disc of baked bread that is sold in this area: crisp and rough in appearance, but then sweet and soft when you taste it.

Later I found out that the ruined building was a university dormitory for male students, Khalaghar in Sutrapur. But the whole surrounding area is what in Jakarta I call urban slums: the atmosphere and lifestyle of the villages (kampung) transplanted in a violent and unnatural way in the urban context, degrading what is traditional and familiar in the villages of origin. With women cooking outside the home, with improvised fires under the trees or among the stones.

My friend Raju told me, one day, on the shore of Lake Guslhan2, many people lived illegally in slums on the bank of that lake up to five years ago, before the government cleared it. 

I've heard the same speech for years. It goes on and on in Jakarta. But people who were forced to leave one place will look for another similar one or rebuild it, like along the rails in Tajgaon or in this dusty neighborhood in Sutrapur.

It's there that I walked, following the children as I usually do, letting myself be guided by them. They like it, and me too. It was among these guts of dust and soil that I met this bizarre old man, who smiled at me constantly and repeated what I then understood was his name: “Ali Bandary!”

He pulled me by the hand, forcing me to follow him. Luckily there was a boy who accompanied me. Not that he seemed dangerous, but he was definitely determined to be followed. With the children screaming laughing “Ali Bandary!”, we entered what looked like an old football field: a large rectangle surrounded by walls that at least allowed me to breathe after the claustrophobic tunnels.

The man looked at me, smiling, pointing to an elderly woman in front of the entrance of a house.

The boy who was with me whispered in my ear: “He wants you to photograph his wife and enter his house.” Oh, you don't often get asked to photograph the wife or invited into the house. Who knows what was going on in the mind of this bizarre and smiling old man, but he was very nice, even if I didn't understand a word. Then I approached the wife who smiled at me and photographed her, with the man pushing me from behind to enter the house, that is, a single dark room.

I took off my shoes, although the man and his wife protested, they wanted me to keep them because it was very dirty. But this is one of the things I learned in Indonesia, and that I always carry with me: it doesn't matter where you are, how poor and dirty the house is, but in some countries taking off your shoes is a sign of respect, and kings like the outcasts of the earth must be respected. Barefoot, we are all the same.

As soon as I entered, I saw this man on the bed, sleeping right under the window. In the meantime that the woman was hurrying to tidy the house, I took a photo of the man that I don't know who he is, since neither I asked him nor did he wake up for the whole time I was there. He could have been the couple's son or a daughter's husband. I don't know.

However, after photographing the couple standing in their house, I understood why the elderly man wanted me to go to his house, to show me and be photographed in front of a mini altar, very kitschy, with the figure of a guru. I still haven't understood what that altar represented, but after the photo we said goodbye and I have gone away, followed by the children. Not before looking at the man who was sleeping peacefully one last time.

It's a photo that I like very much. 

Aesthetically, it reminds me of the classic indoor photos of Salgado in Perù or Brazil, of Bruno Barbey's post-war Italy, Willy Ronis' Paris or, much closer geographically, the splendid and intimate photographs of the “Father and Son” project by Richard and Pablo Bartholomew taken in India between the 60s and 80s.

Willy Ronis: “Night in the Chalet”, Paris (1935)*

Richard Bartholomew: “Pablo and Robin with Rathi” Delhi, (1965)**

A type of photography that for me always recalls the visual legacy of Caravaggio's paintings, in this case to the “Sleeping Cupid”.

Caravaggio: "Sleeping Cupid", 1608 - 1609. Public domain art.

From a deeper point of view, however, it sparks a reflection—once again—on light, because I believe that lights are not all the same; as it was for the ancient light of the photo in the market, so it is for each light that strikes us in a photograph. Each has its own identity and secrets.

Photographing in such a dark room means—technically—underexposing a lot, keeping most of the scene in the dark so as not to burn the light and what it illuminates, in this case, the body of the sleeping man, as in the paintings of Caravaggio.

This is therefore a light that dialogues with the shadow, with the darkness.

There is a long philosophical and spiritual tradition from ancient Vedic texts to Taoism that insisted on the theme of a single ultimate reality, in which there are no dualities.

In his famous book The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra explained how modern physics has reached, with quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, the same conclusions already written in the Bhagavad-Gita or in the Buddhist Tao:

“The idea that all opposites are polar – that light and dark, win or lose, good or bad are just different aspects of the same phenomenon – is one of the fundamental principles of the Eastern way of life.”

Light and shadow become one, they are absolutely not in dual contrast, because in physical reality, as in the realm of spirit, there is no duality or opposition.

I need all the shade possible in that room to make the light live in its sweetness, and only then it can paint the body of the sleeping man. It's not a poetic exaggeration or delirium of mine, but being in that room and taking that picture, and then seeing it and seeing it again dozens of times, made me feel this awareness on my skin, in my eyes. Still.

In 1933, the Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki published a short essay entitled "Book of Shadow", in which he defends the superiority of eastern sensitivity—the “world of shadows”—over the western one—the “world of light”.

“But why do we Orientals like so much the beauty that comes from the shadows?” writes Tanizaki. “There is, perhaps, in us Orientals, an inclination to accept the limits, and the circumstances of life. We resign ourselves in the shade, as it is, and without repulsion. Is the light dim? Let the darkness swallow us up, and discover beauty for them. On the contrary, the West believes in progress and wants to change the state. They went from candle to oil, from oil to gas, from gas to electricity, chasing a clarity that would flush out even the last parcel of shadow.”

It's deeply true, as we read between these pages, we Westerners like everything clean, white, even the metals are polished to remove that patina of time which for Orientals is a sign of beauty and for us of dirt.

Upon entering that room I was annoyed by the lack of light. Like a stupid, I asked if other lights could be turned on, but the woman replied that there was only that small light bulb; as a good Westerner, son of the “Age of Enlightenment”, avid admirer of light which is an integral part of my work and my passion as a photographer. We come to illuminate, polish, give power to that small bulb with the arrogance of our ISO, also forcing the woman to tidy the house quickly so as not to embarrass the Western lover of order and cleanliness.

“Is the light dim? Let the darkness swallow us up, and discover beauty for them.”

We must take a step back, I mean relative to all our certainties, and try to “see” in the deepest sense of the term—what in the Bhagavad-Gita is called “see the truth”, see the intimate relationship that exists between the light and the shadow and how they are a single entity.

That we must accept the shadow and indeed make it an essential part of the light. Inside and outside of us.

That the beauty of that room is precisely in its shadow that nourishes the little light, and that they live there well, it's their reality.

This is, maybe, I believe the deeper meaning of taking your shoes off before entering someone else's house.

*This image is copyrighted © Willy Ronis or the assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only.

** These images are copyrighted © Richard and Pablo Bartholomew or the assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only.

 

 Willy Ronis. (TASCHEN, 2005)

Pablo and Richard Bartholomew: “Father and Son” (Fishbar, 2011)

Fritjof Capra: “The Tao of physics” (Adelphi, 1999)

“Bhagavad-Gita – Study guide with a literal translation”, edited by Howard Resnick (Susil Edizioni, 2015)

Junichiro Tanizaki: “Book of shadow” (Bompiani, 2000)

Italian version