Lounge Podcast | Not so Monkish
A photo exhibition that reveals another side of Buddhist monks
Spanish photographer Jaime Leon Ros thinks his camera is his third eye, which makes him look at things which the human eyes would have otherwise ignored. A Spanish journalist based in India for the last five years, Ros says the idea of telling the lesser-known tales fascinates him.
This quest for uncovering the untold along with his fascination with Buddhists monks led to his series The Colour of Buddhism. “We have a very mythical view of Buddhist monks. So I thought of photographing their daily life and showing that they are normal human beings like us", says Ros.
And his photographs display that aptly. In one picture a monk is shown playing with a dog while another has a monk clicking a picture of skyscrapers from a traffic intersection. In one image taken in Leh, Ros has captured a group of young monks playing football. “When I started talking to them, I figured that these monks know everything about football and are big fans of Ronaldo and Beckham", he says.
Ros’ images were taken during his travels through Southeast Asian countries like China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal and Burma, from 2007 onwards. However, he doesn’t mention the country’s name in his photographs “I don’t want to make them country specific. Their lives — be it in Vietnam or India — are so similar and that is all that matters", says the photographer who is now planning to do a photographic project on East Asia. “The idea will be to showcase the contradictions of huge skyscrapers along with traditional Asia", he says.
The Colour of Buddhism is on from 11-15 November at the Korean Cultural Center, A-25, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi.
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