My eyes may be perfectly fine, but I've always had the impression that I have some sort of sight problem. Presbyopia, to be more exact.
The impression that I can't see close enough. Well, I can see objects, but I have the impression that as soon as I get close to a place, it's never enough. The subject is being pushed away.
As soon as I brush up against a place, walk its streets, tracks, colors and smells, I realize that it's only an outcrop of the richness that surrounds a place. The people who live there, the narrow streets and underground bars. The little coves known only to the locals, the best places to eat.
You have to keep coming back.
If some people have a bucket list, and they have the ability to tick boxes and move on, it's a different story for me.
Every little layer I scrape off the surface of the maps I travel through is no source of contentment. Eternal dissatisfaction.
On the contrary, it only reveals what lies beneath. Traveling the globe to explore the notion of humility. Our passage is but a thin line on a very large map.
When we turn left at an intersection, there is always the dissatisfaction of not having seen what the right-hand path had to offer. Some might say, you should practice mindfulness meditation. I’d rather go back, just to be sure.
I've been to India several times. Initially driven by curiosity and the idea of understanding what the hell was going on over there, I returned with the certainty that I had seen nothing, only glimpses. There's a semantic disdain in saying that you've 'done' such and such a country. You don't do anything, you just barely see.
You travel to make your own mind, to see things yourself. To experience through all senses. But all you ever do is flirt with the surface of things. So, stubbornly, I had to go back.
This time, all the way north, between Kashmir and the Nepalese border. From the high plateaux to the sweltering plains.
Traveling in India means studying patience and rediscovering yourself in depth. Understanding that if you seem to go unnoticed elsewhere, chances are you'll fluoresce here.Because yes, we can often tuck ourselves away in a corner and observe the world around us. With a camera, a notebook and a pen.I dare you to be discreet in India.
There's something annoying about that, at first anyway. Being a prime target for attention is pretty exhausting. We like anonymity.
Well, not quite. Something ambivalent, something in-between.
In any case, what an idea to go cycling in India hoping to find an in-between.This country is everything but a land of middle ground. It’s intense. Bodies are close, the crowd is dense. You are scrutinized as much as you unconsciously swallow informations at a yet unknown pace.
Up there, in the mountains of Ladakh, there are very few people. But that doesn't stop the few people we meet from stopping to ask questions.
The weather was fair, sun was shining, and we felt ready to answer questions and take a few photos. What's more, the fact that we're cycling with a loaded bike through a dusty pass can raise legitimate questions. And there's something comforting about seeing other faces in the desolate highlands of this planet.
Descending through Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous region, requires a little more resilience.
For a start, there are people everywhere, all the time. Then there's the heat and the humidity. All this put together, cradled by the mutual incomprehension of idioms that brush against each other but never cross paths. But what's changed since the first time I came is that I've accepted that my desire to get closer to things and people to get a better look at them can be disproportionately reciprocated.
So there's nothing wrong with both parties wanting to get closer, driven by the same kind of curiosity. So human contacts are born. Nothing to sell, or even to talk about.
Simply a deep desire, if not the need, to face each other.
What better country than India to come back to the purest thing that individuals have to offer each other: their respective attention.
All you had to do was set foot on the ground and a single person would come up to you, and you'd be in the crowd. We've all secretly dreamed of being famous one day, and now we are.
No irony intended, though. They say there's something fascinating about traveling by bike. It's not me saying it, it's the lovely people who were in the crowds and spoke English. The crowd. I have to admit that I was a bit afraid of it. It's not uncommon to cycle past somewhere in India and end up on local television. I’ve experienced the dark side of crowd, unsafe and insane moments in Ethiopia or Egypt.
But here more than anywhere else, going against my worries, I found the crowds extremely respectful. Respectful of myself, my bike, distances and physical integrity.
A bike is like a pair of glasses for people like me. It allows you to see better. And without being too voyeuristic, because in a way our curiosity satisfies that of others, since I've been examined in exchange. The bicycle as the main vehicle for an exchange of courtesies.
For all the photos I've been able to take of others, I'm giving a little of that back over there, with all the compassion and gratitude in the world.
Trying to see better, I had to come back. By coming back, I understood better. First of all, I realized that I understood absolutely nothing about my surroundings. Also that the time spent observing the world from a saddle is a trial won against the intolerance and inertia in which people who are a little too sure of their judgements find themselves.
There are so many things that influence everyday experiences. And when you're traveling, things can happen in such a way that you leave a country with a bitter taste in your mouth.
When in doubt, come back. Start again.
I did well to come back to India. I've accepted and let go of so much that I can now appreciate the beauty of the most abrupt misunderstandings and differences.
The countries I love most dearly are the ones I've spent time in, but above all, the places I've returned to, each time peeling back a little more of the layers that the new puts before our eyes, blinding us to everything that doesn't shine at first sight.To stay for a long time is to absorb a place, to melt into it. To return a little later is to look at it through the eyes of a changing, growing identity.
One evening, one of us was hit by a motorbike. More fear than harm. People everywhere. Police, anger, blazing sun. We decided to find a hotel nearby.
We take a shower and order some food.
During dinner, the owner comes into the living room with a group of people, we say hello and smile at each other.
Later, I go back to the kitchen to heat up some water for coffee. The owner's daughter comes up to me and says: "Do you know who those people were in the living room earlier? They'd been following you in their car all afternoon, all the way here, and came knocking on the door to ask if they could come in and have a closer look at us.
I was speechless. On the one hand, it's a pretty scary story. But it's also one of the most beautiful stories I've ever heard.
In the end, we all want to see each other more closely. Because losing your presbyopia means losing your ability to marvel, losing your curiosity.
I imagine that there must be a duty that goes hand in hand with the right to visit the world. To go and see the world up close, so that in exchange we can offer those who can't travel as far the opportunity to see what the other side of the world might be like. It's all about exchange.
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