DAY 80

Last day and farewell party at the swiss embassy. 

My exhibition at the swiss embassy was very successful. We were waiting for 50 people and more than a hundred showed up. I had the pleasure to see my images in big size for the first time and I think they are beautiful. My adventure in India is finished, it was great and i am already working on the next project that hopefully will bring me back here. 

Thanks to all the people who helped me, supported me and made my trip so easy and fruitful : 

In Jaipur

Vinay Sharma
Sarojani Chachlani
Sandeep Agrawal
Dasrath Singh
Ummed Singh Nirvan
Bhagirath Singh

In Delhi

Chandrika Grover Ralleigh
Sadaf Raza
Blessy Augustine
Lionel Dentan
Ish
Raoul Amaar Abbas
Ambassador Linus von Castelmur and his wife

see you soon !

DAY 73

Shooting Delhi day 1.

Looks like it worked ! I thought I'll never make it but the first day of shooting in Delhi is done. Tomorrow is the last day and i hope there won't be clouds...

DAY 72

My exhibition and farewell party will take place next week at the swiss embassy in Delhi near the swimming pool. First it was supposed to take place in the garden but the wife of the ambassador had the great idea to move it around the swimming pool.

DAY 68

Dj-set at The Living Room in Hauz Khaz the trendy block of Delhi. Very nice evening with a live from Ish and some Ukrainian friends of him.

 

DAY 67

Lunch with the ambassador. 

So i've been invited to lunch with the swiss ambassador. First i thought it was a collective invitation with a lot of people but it was only me and the ambassador and his wife... very nice people, we talked about architecture, movies and tv series and they proposed to show my work in the embassy in stead of Pro Helvetia office, so that's what is gonna happen on 15th of this month, just before my flight home. We had chicken and a delicious chocolate ice-cream. They are very interesting people with lot of stories to tell. It was a very good moment in this beautiful building. Thank you Dr. Linus von Castelmur and your lovely wife. 

DAY 66

Mean bureaucrats win by K.O.

This morning i was welcome by this words "we can not assure the security of your camera, somebody is gonna steal it"... why did they not tell me that yesterday at the same time they where telling me "ok, ok, everything is ok" ? I can only guess that it was for the pleasure of a long lasting fight. So i officially surrendered, i won't shoot in Delhi, i still don't understand what this attitude was about, they could have use my work for free, they could have made a good image of themselves supporting art and the international diffusion of their beautiful patrimony but they preferred to hassle and deny so i find only fair not to feature any image of Delhi in my work and concentrate on Jaipur where people have been so friendly and supportive. Now back to real work in preparation for my exhibition next week in the office of Pro Helvetia who has done everything in his power to help me but couldn't beat such a high level of bureaucratic non-sense. On the bright side it means that i won't have to wake up at 5 in the morning anymore :)

DAY 65

So i tried again this morning to shoot the Ram Yantra of Delhi but i am pretty sure that somebody switch off my camera at 10.47... that's the last picture taken and the batteries are still full. I've been once again directed to the office with the words "no permission" but this time they didn't let me in, a boy show them the original of the permission i had left a copy this morning. He came back 5 min later saying "it's ok, everything is ok" well.. for them sure but i lost one day once again. Impressive exemple of narrow-minded bureaucracy. Tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy so i am really not sure if i will ever be able to shoot this place as my permission goes for 3 days only and i have already lost the first one. To be continued...

The Gurudwara Bangla Sahib is a huge temple I say.

But what really made my day was the Ugrasen Ki Baoli an old water tank very very deep and steep.

DAY 64

Visit to the Pro Helvetia office where i will show a bit of my work in progress next week on this wall : 

I get my permission too, this time the real one. So tomorrow morning at 5.30am i'll be back to the Jantar Mantar Delhi...

DAY 62

We hit 40°C today and we gonna get one more degree everyday from now on... So let me introduce you my most precious fan : 

DAY 61

Today I am eating some "Swiss Roll" ! It is surprisingly good ! All in all the chocolate products in India are very good.

DAY 60

3-hours jam-session with Da Saz today. Very very good, i had a great time. Enjoy a small extract here. 

DAY 59

Here we go again ! 5.00 O'Clock wake up today to start my first day of shooting in the Jantar Mantar Delhi. The instrument targeted was the Ram Yantra, i am planning to shoot only the Ram Yantra as the other instruments are in so bad shape that i can make nothing out of it. So, a bit before sunrise i installed my camera after a little talk with the people at the entrance that let me do my thing after a rapid look at my letter of permission. When i came back at 6.00 pm i was directly directed to the office where i had the displeasure to meet 3 people who never told me their name or fonction and just dismissed my letter even if it was stamped by the Archeological Survey of India and contained a receipt for the payment. They treated me like if a was delusional with all the power a small office-man can show-off, it was very inconfortable. What a difference in reception compared to Jaipur... After calling my efficient coach Blessy they changed their attitude and offer me a tchai. But their dignity was at stake so they invented that my letter was not an authorization and that the only person able to deliver me the pass has, by chance, called sick this morning and we don't know when he is coming back... So my work there is postponed at a future unknown date.

Just during the sunrise i visited the biggest mosque in Delhi the Jama Masjid. Huge building, very impressive.  

DAY 58

Just received my permission to shoot in the Jantar Mantar in Delhi. That's a great news ! I should start tomorrow but it is not clear yet if someone will be there at 6.00 am to open the doors...

This evening i've been to an exhibition at Khoj : SAMPLE CITIES / IMAGINARY SPACES EXPANDED CINEMATOGRAPHIC INSTALLATION By Gusztáv Hámos and Katja Pratschke. Great pictures and movies. I would really like to be able to show my work in the small grey room where they displayed the movie, this gonna be difficult as time is running out and they are quite busy there but i'm still gonna try.

DAY 56

A tedious day of video rendering... I am thinking of a way to show the work in progress before leaving India, more about that soon.

DAY 55

Back in Delhi and straight to a jam-session with 6 brilliant musicians. A great moment, i'll try to get the recording in a few days. Just when the set-up was done and we were ready to play, a wedding band starts playing so loudly that we had to wait for an hour until they stop. 

Lionel aka Da Saz and his beautiful car. 

DAY 54

Nothing to report... packing day before coming back to Delhi tomorrow at 6.00am. Have a good night !

DAY 53

Albert Hall Museum and Birla Temple.

DAY 52

Election day in Jaipur. So my visit to Museum and Planetarium would have to wait i'm afraid. 

After voting you get a black mark on your left finger to control that people don't vote twice, the other place where i have seen that was in Peru, which for the record has a lot of similarities with India (lots of great food, huge mountains, strange animals, extreme climate, extreme poverty...). 

An indian guy said to me : "there is no such thing as a good politician, only bad-bad and good-bad, you choose the less bad". On the two main candidates, one has been accused of one murder and the other of two murders, so you choose the one with less murders on his conscience. Well... things seems to be quite the same everywhere. (and that's another similarity with Peru by the way). 

That is my address in Jaipur.

DAY 51

Day of editing. This is my first experience in editing and i must admit that this is a very difficult job...

I've tried some Mirage today ! Very powerful experience, indeed. 

Third article in Jaipur in the Patrika newspaper. Still don't know what they are talking about but people around assure me it is good. I just can hope so..

DAY 50

Working on the editing of the project that now have a name : "Axis Mundi : music from the Jantar Mantar".

Just finished the book Train To Pakistan, which tell the story of the very dark time after the Partition of India in 1947 when Pakistan was created and 10 million people where forced to move from one country to the other. During the process 1 million were killed. A dreadful piece of history. 

DAY 49

Last day of shooting today, a wide view of the all place.

The Jal Mahal. A palace in the middle of a lake.

The Amber Fort. First capital city of Jay Singh before he built Jaipur.

DAY 48

Day-off today, just reading and eating.

DAY 47

The 12 Ravisalayas where the subject of my ultimate day of shooting on location. Each one of these instruments points to a specific zodiac sign in the sky.

I discover this very small sundial on top of the Nadivalaya. With it if think i have discover all the hidden treasures of the place. 

These are the two pinholes through which the sun goes on the instrument from the latest post.

;)