{ PHOTOS BY ROB SIDON }
India’s spiritual philosophy compelled me as a young seeker but not until a violent motorsports accident in London in 1996 would the doors to this mystical land open to me. With bones still mending and a mediocre borrowed camera, I captured a dozen rolls chronicling wanderings from the country’s southernmost tip to the mountainous Himalayas. The prints were processed in India and have been sitting in a dusty backpack ever since.
In search of a yoga pictorial, I called an extraordinary photographer living in Colorado. He only answered because he assumed I was the emergency plumber who needed better directions. At that moment his apartment was flooding from the upstairs and rapidly destroying his belongings. Panicked, he requested we speak in a week, though he never responded after several weeks. Eventually, I received an apologetic email explaining his overwhelm and unavailability.
This experience prompted me to open the forgotten backpack and share its contents with a friend. A flood of vivid memories were rekindled sifting through the stacks of prints. It had been an innocent exploration into the colorful—and black and white—birthplace of yoga. My friend urged me to publish some and I sheepishly agreed. This pictorial, shared with gratitude, is my first. It shows a small sampling from a pivotally transformative pilgrimage—my first. I hope you enjoy them. Om.
Rob Sidon is publisher and editor in chief of Common Ground
