Visualizing the estimated timeline of early human migration. Published in A walk through Time. TEST 2
Jeff Blossom
Every hundred miles Paul Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. TEST 2
Every hundred miles Paul Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. TEST 2
We had walked nearly 25 miles nonstop and were very tired. The sun was setting. We stopped beside the country road to rest. A group of young men soon formed. This happens all the time in India. They were simply curious. Where are you from? Where are you going? The usual questions, asked dozens of times daily, along the route. There is no way to answer such queries meaningfully—to have a conversation—with 14 men beside a road. So I began filming them. India is a culture of selfies. The men mugged for the camera. My filming only drew more. Until I started filming their feet. This act crossed some unknown boundary of delicacy. The crowd did not like their feet filmed. It made them anxious. And in this way, one by one, the onlookers drifted away.
A wraparound soundscape at this Milestone
This Milestone’s location on a map
Photos of the ground under Paul’s feet and the sky above at this Milestone
A brief question and answer with the first person Paul meets at this Milestone
Ram Sharan
Roadside vendor, 48
Who are you?
I am from the Harijan caste. Doesn’t America have caste discrimination? There are castes here. I don’t know where it came from. It just is. It makes me feel diminished, I mean as a human, against, say, the Pandit caste. They wouldn’t accept food from my house if they visited to conduct ceremonies. I feel lowered. It’s difficult to stop caste discrimination. It’s age-old.
Where do you come from?
I’m from here—that group of houses over there.
Where are you going?
Where else? Home.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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