Jesuit priest Paulo Teia published recently his latest work “Namasté - The Light of God in me greets the Light of God in you”. A photography book, summarizing the experience of his encounter with the poorest and the most marginalized of the Indian society during a three month journey that took place all across the country in 2014.

In Namasté, what one sees is not beauty in the way we are used to recognize it. Still, one sees the truth of a hidden beauty. As the author himself says, this is the truth “of a beauty that is sore, attacked, persecuted by the density of every hour and moment”. Paulo Teia ran the neighbourhoods and the alleys where thousands of people survive; the sideroads where the sick and the forgotten agonize; the fields and the rivers where children, oblivious and alien to misery, play and swim: “I tell of each face, in its singular pain, in its singular stroke of color. An immense palette drawn and dragged over the course of the months of this unique journey”.

Most images in the book are portraits that mirror the nobility and the dignity of people who live in situations of extreme misery – often submerged by such a harsh reality that it makes them lose all critical distance, and all capacity to recognize one’s beauty. The majority of these people had never been photographed. Many of them had also never had the chance to look at an image of themselves. For that reason, besides photographing them, the author would go around offering five images to each person photographed. 12 thousand photographs were distributed in total! The joy felt by seeing one’s own light, dignity, and beauty transmitted in a photograph is something indescribable, says Paulo Teia.

In addition to the images, the book includes some sort of a narrative of the journey, of its stories and experiences. Originally shared in Facebook, these are the elements that ended up giving birth to the book.

Paulo Teia was born in Lisbon in 1969. He joined the Society of Jesus at the age of 20, studying philosophy and theology in Braga, Madrid, and Paris. After being ordained a priest in 2002, Paulo was sent as his first mission to Pragal, in Almada, where he created a youth centre. The preferential option for the poor is a fundamental characteristic of his, and one that was only enhanced after joining the Jesuits. Paulo asked for a sabbatical in 2014, looking to spend some time in a journey that would enable him to meet the poorest of the poor. He spent six months in Madrid, deepening his photographic skills, and left afterwards for Cambodia and for India. After this striking experience, Paulo was sent to Mozambique, where he is currently the parish priest of the cathedral in Tete.