Learning To Train-Surf in Bangladesh

[demmiblue]

Source: Slate








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“When the train starts your feet will shake and you will try to hold something, but there is nothing to hold on to,” says Bangladeshi photographer G.M.B. Akash, who learned to balance while shooting the photos above. They’re part of a larger exhibit titled “Survivors” currently on display at Anastasia Photo in New York City. “Knowing that at any time an accident can happen will make you nervous give you insecurity, making it more risky,” he added.

Those who ride the roof every day to work, too broke to pay for a spot inside, eventually get accustomed to the shaking. They learn how to gracefully duck low-hanging tree limbs and nonchalantly avoid decapitation by stray wire. These regulars often grow so comfortable that they doze as they ride. But all it takes is a sudden stop or a crazy dream, and then even these veterans run the risk of rolling right off.
1320959771709 Fishermen, on their journey from market in Dhaka, sleep on the train roof among their empty fish pots.

In the process of documenting train riders for the project, Akash encountered hundreds of low-paid workers for whom roof-surfing was an economic necessity. He met mothers squeezed onto the small spaces between carriages, nothing protecting their babies from the moving rails below except their arms. He met homeless children with nowhere particular to go, who simply enjoy living dangerously. He captured all these characters in bold color, their purple shirts and clashing paisley prints infiltrating routine commutes with deceptively joyous electricity.

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Seeing an exhibit in Dhaka in 1998 on AIDS victims showed him that photography could be as powerful as medicine. He left determined to document the most neglected parts of Bangladeshi society—sex workers, the homeless, the gay community. In just a few years he began getting noticed, receiving invitations to attend prestigious international photo workshops and to publish his work in magazines, including National Geographic. Over the last several years he has received numerous awards for his work.


Read More: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/11/10/train_surfing_in_bangladesh_photos.html

[Taverner]

1. Bangladesh - an entire country founded on the Jute Market

Dog help them all...