Bathing in the Fountain of Youth

“The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star. ”
(From “The Prisoner and The Fugitive : In search of lost time, vol. 5” by Marcel Proust)

This young man was climbing a pillar which is usually underwater in the Ganges at Scindia ghat.
This architectural element is what is left from the massive palace which used to stand there until the end of the 19th century before the whole structure fell in the holy river.
This picture belongs to a series revolving around my “search of lost time” and of the lost splendour of Varanasi (Benaras)…

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Footprints of the Soul

“The Ganges front is the supreme showplace of Benares.
Its tall bluffs are solidly caked from water to summit, along a stretch of three miles, with a splendid jumble of massive and picturesque masonry, a bewildering and beautiful confusion of stone platforms, temples, stair flights, rich and stately palaces….soaring stairways, sculptured temples, majestic palaces, softening away into the distances; and there is movement, motion, human life everywhere, and brilliantly costumed – streaming in rainbows up and down the lofty stairways, and massed in metaphorical gardens on the mile of great platforms at the river’s edge.”
(Mark Twain – American Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

This is a view of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) from Ahilyabai ghat to Mansrowar Ghat.
Some dreams can never be lost, they become footprints of the soul…
The Eternal city belongs to these kind of dreams…

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The Absolute and The Particular

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“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory — of the absolute and of the particular.
Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties.
The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
(Charles Baudelaire – French Poet, 1821-1867)

I’ll never get tired of taking pictures of the Taj Mahal…
This is the absolute embodiment of everything on earth.

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One Eternal Sigh

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“Kingly power is like a cruel bolt of thunder,
Let that fade away like the blood-red sky at dusk,
Let just one eternal sigh remain like sadness in the sky
Wasn’t that all you’d ever asked for?
The glittering jewels cast their spell like an eternal magical mystery.
But even if that does vanish,
Let just one tear drop roll down the cheeks of Time;
The pure light of Taj Mahal.”
(Rabindranath Tagore – Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist. Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861–1941)

Endless passion, everlasting love, eternal sigh…the Taj Mahal should remain forever the essence of perfection…
However there is a threat over this image of Heaven as it could collapse within four years because wooden foundations are rotting.
( Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045183/Taj-Mahal-collap… )
Nowadays it is almost impossible to take this picture anymore as the army doesn’t allow to go to this side of the Yamuna river.

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The Creators’ Glory

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“Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator’s glory.”
(Emperor Shah Jahan)

It is said that Shah Jahan wrote himself this poem about the Taj Mahal that he built for Mumtaz Mahal, his favorite wife (Original Source: Mahajan, Vidya Dhar (1970). Muslim Rule In India. p. 200).
The Taj Mahal seen from the banks of river Yamuna might be a common dream for many but truly this stunning architectural beauty is second to none and each time I come there I simply love it a little more…

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Accepting Decay

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“To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.”

(George Orwell – English Novelist and Essayist, 1903-1950)

This is the back of the main building of the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University in Varanasi (Benaras) which was established in 1791 and this is a part of the jantar mantar (observatory).
Such an architecture wouldn’t be expected there and it is adding mystery to the oldest living city where the hours have definitely decided to stop.
Sometimes during summers I seat at the door of a classroom where flows a light breeze and I can listen to the French lessons at the end of the day.
This is how I met Himanshu who ever since always comes by chance to practice my mother tongue at my office which is nearby…

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Holy Cow

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“I knew the profanity used up and down my street would not go over the air…
So I trained myself to say ‘Holy Cow’ instead.”
(Harry Caray – American baseball broadcaster, 1914-1998)

This picture was shot along the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
Nandi, the gate keeper of Shiva, is facing the main shrine of a temple where a cow was also standing…

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A Work of Women

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“Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a ”work” of man.”
(Mary McCarthy – American novelist,1912-1989)

This picture was shot in the temple complex of Khajuraho which is a village in in the center of India in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
The Khajuraho group of monuments has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their erotic sculpture.
Those ladies were bringing back into existence some of the splendor of those temples which was once the original capital of the Chandela Rajputs, a Hindu dynasty that ruled this part of India from the 10th to the 12th centuries.
The Khajuraho temples were built over a span of a hundred years, from 950 to 1050.
There were originally over 80 Hindu temples, of which only 22 now stand in a reasonable state of preservation.
After their abandonment, a number of them survived and were rediscovered during the late 19th century while the jungles had taken a toll on some of the monuments.
Those women asked me to take a few pictures, they were proud and happy that I gave them some time.

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Optical Inaccuracy

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“To achieve accurate knowledge of others, if such a thing were possible, we could only ever arrive at it through the slow and unsure recognition of our own initial optical inaccuracies.
However, such knowledge is not possible: for, while our vision of others is being adjusted, they, who are not made of mere brute matter, are also changing; we think we have managed to see them more clearly, but they shift; and when we believe we have them fully in focus, it is merely our older images of them that we have clarified, but which are themselves already out of date.”
(from ” In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” by Marcel Proust – French novelist, 1871-1922)

This was shot in a street of Bhagwanpur near BHU in Varanasi (Benaras).
Those men are carpenters, they were resting under the shade of a tree next to several tables ready to be delivered.

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Shraaddha

“Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.”
(Epicurus – Greek philosopher, BC 341-270)

This picture was shot at Ahilyabai Ghat in Varanasi (Benaras) where an old man invited a Brahman to perform Shraaddha along the holy waters of the Ganges.
Shraaddha (Death Anniversary) is a Sanskrit word which literally means anything or any act that is performed with all sincerity and faith.
In the Hindu religion, it is the ritual that one performs to pay homage to one’s ancestors, especially to one’s dead parents.

“Rites with offerings known as shaddha are periodically held after a person has died to nourish the soul in the afterlife.
The rites are often performed once a year and feature a feast with a plate of food of food offered to the dead.
Hindu believe the living must feed the dead living in the World of the Fathers.
If the ancestors are properly taken care of they will reward the living with prosperity and sons.
The shaddha is thought to day back to the Aryans.
It is viewed as a meeting between the living and the dead.
The souls of the dead who are nor properly buried are thought live outside the World of Fathers as ghosts that torment their relatives until they are there. custom”
(“World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts on File Publications, New York)

Conceptually, it is a way for people to express heartfelt gratitude and thanks towards their parents and ancestors, for having helped them to be what they are and praying for their peace.
It also can be thought of as a “day of remembrance”.
It is performed for both the father and mother separately, on the days they became deceased.
It performed on the death anniversary or collectively during the Pitru Paksha or Shraaddha paksha (Fortnight of ancestors), right before Sharad Navaratri in autumn.
View On Black

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