‘the hesitant, the absent and the present’ is a collage distilled from a reportage I made on the Sunderban islands in the Bay of Bengal between India and Bangladesh.

A very fascinating world where initially the white sandy beaches seemed to come out of a bounty commercial but very soon, while living with the people in their straw huts, I saw a different reality coming to the front, where struggle was more present even though the persistent genuine friendliness of the people made it very hard to take it in fully.  Coming from the so called ‘rich’ west where people’s happiness often seems to be lingering  a whole notch lower on the scale, ‘being rich’ is a very relative notion indeed.

‘the hesitant’, a shy boy  very much into cricket and in full admiration of his idol Sachin Tendulkar, a God in India (young version behind the boy)

‘the absent’ was taken at the crucial moment during a community meeting where an important decision for the village had to be taken

I saw the girl in ‘the present’ while hitching a ride on a mule cart while on my way out of the islands. Her presence and empty state of mind struck me deeply and I asked her mother if I could take her picture as soon as the cart would come to a halt.

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