Immediately parallel to the River Ganges within the city of Varanasi is a stretch of road lined with buildings of final grandeur and disrepair, a mine of material for street photography. I walked down this street on several occasions during a trip to India in 2013, looking out for interesting scenes to evolve. These two photos I got on the penultimate day of the trip.
Bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws, motorized tuk-tuks and motor cars create much of the visual and sonic landscape of the street, as do the various hawkers, sellers and repairmen lining it. And this is what I love about India: life lived on the street. I love the scene of the bicycle repairman, squatting in front of a front wheel twisted almost upon itself, seemingly being asked the impossible and yet still pondering it. Perhaps he’s just trying to work out how to remove the bent wheel.
在印度的瓦拉納西,沿著恆河有條街道,街上滿是破舊失修的建築,散發一種頹廢之美,恰巧提供了豐富的街道攝影題材。在二○一三年,我旅遊至印度,幾次走過這條街,尋覓著有趣的攝影場景,而在旅途的倒數第二天,我拍下了這兩張照片。
腳踏車、摩托車、人力車、電動三輪車、汽車構成了這條街道上最主要的視覺與聽覺元素,當然還有站在各種車子旁吆喝的小販、商人、修理工。生活在街道上的人們是印度深深吸引我之處。我喜愛腳踏車修理工蹲踞在極度變形的腳踏車前輪前,彷彿受到刁難,卻仍苦思著如何解決的樣子。我不知道他在想什麼,或許他只是思考著要如何把變形的輪胎取下。
Then there’s the boy waiting for another repairman, busy pumping up the flat front tire of his tricycle, so he can be on his way. The tricycle is actually a rear-loading carrier trike, fitted with a slatted platform, of a type commonly seen in India. Perhaps he uses the trike for his work, transporting goods around the city.
街上另一名修理工忙著為一名孩子的三輪車打氣,孩子等待著,車輪充好氣他才能再次上路。那是一輛載貨用的三輪車,後方拖著一個石板平台,在印度很常見。或許男孩的工作是用三輪車在城市載貨。
(台北時報編譯涂宇安譯)
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