On The Path To Moksha

 

“The longing for Paradise is man’s longing not to be man.”
(From “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera)

This picture was shot at Manikarnika Ghat along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) where Hindus are cremated hoping to receive moksha, freedom from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth.
Moksha allows one to see the truth and reality behind the fog of ignorance and reach a state of knowledge, peace and bliss…

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In The Dense Atmosphere Of The Living

“I tell you once and for all— in front of the angel pictures
on the wall, that I am not a host to load-bearing ghosts or headyentities, and if I was ever holy, I have fallen far
into the dense atmosphere of the living.”
(From ” Drum Machine” by Kristen Henderson)

This is a street near Bari Bazar Road where I often go to my weavers worshop, this place always bring me back to the dense atmosphere of the living…

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The Extraordinary in the Ordinary

“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer.
You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things.
But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.”
(David Bailey – English fashion and portrait photographer, b.1938)

This picture was shot in a little village near Varanasi (Benaras) where a few workers of the Red Haloteam live.
When I come and visit the families I enjoy taking pictures of the ordinary countryside life which I find extraordinary as it reminds me a few images from old Indian movies I used to watch when I was a teenager.
Time has passed living fragments of nostalgia and the illusion that hours, months or years could stop over there…

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Cover of “SHUBH YATRA” – October 2014 issue

 

“To the Divine” is a picture shot during the Ganga Aarti celebrated for Dev Diwali at Prayag ghat along the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).

It was selected for the image cover of the October 2014 issue of “SHUBH YATRA”, the inflight magazine of Air India.

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Cover of “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth

“Out of Sundays Dancing” is a picture with four parrots dancing in the air at Munshi ghat along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
It was selected to make the cover of “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth which is released for the 20Th Anniversary Edition.

_______________________

“A Suitable Boy”: 20Th Anniversary Edition
by Vikram Seth

ISBN-13: 9789383064120
Genre: Fiction & Literature/ Fiction/ General
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Aleph Book Company (2/1/2014)
Language English

http://read.ebay.in/ci/A-Suitable-Boy:-20Th-Anniversary-Edition—PRE-ORDER-/12133144
_______________________

• “A Suitable Boy” is a novel by Vikram Seth, published in 1993.
With 1349 pages (1488 pages softcover) and 591,552 words, the book is the longest novel in English ever written in a single volume.

Vikram Seth’s novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find — through love or through exacting maternal appraisal — a suitable boy for Lata to marry.
Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves.
A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, “A Suitable Boy” remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence.

• Vikram Seth is an Indian novelist, poet and Human Rights activist.
He has written several novel and poetry books.
He has received several awards including Padma Shri, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award.

_______________________

Having one of my pictures shot in Varanasi (Benaras) used for the cover of “A Suitable Boy” means a lot to me as this is the novel that Warris Vianni, my friend from London, told me to read when I first came to India a decade ago.
It took me all that time to really understand the meaning of these pages and in a way to “become Indian”…
This is why this book is very special to me.
Somehow this picture on the cover of Vikram Seth’s novel is ending a chapter of my life and opening a new one…
Maybe this is the time for maturity after learning and making so many things mine from what I felt, saw and heard along my endless journey in the galis of the Eternal city…

Special thanks to photographer Dinesh Khanna for introducing my work to the publisher of this book at Aleph Book Company.

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS – July 14th, 2014

An interview by Pallavi Pundir for THE INDIAN EXPRESS
published on July 14th, 2014.

http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/in-the-muddy-pits/

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The Huffington Post – July 3rd, 2014

“The Accidental Sensuality Of Ancient Indian Wrestling”, an article by Mallika Rao
published in The Huffington Post on July 3rd, 2014.

http://huff.to/1vy8Hi7

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From The Soul

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
(Jalal ud-Din Rumi known as Rumi – Persian poet and theologian, 1207-1273)

Early in the morning, I met these two young men who were washing their garments in the holy waters of the Ganges at Lal ghat in Varanasi.

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Planet of the Apes

“That perfected machines may one day succeed us is, I remember, an extremely commonplace notion on Earth.
It prevails not only among poets and romantics but in all classes of society.
Perhaps it is because it is so widespread, born spontaneously in popular imagination, that it irritates scientific minds. 
Perhaps it is also for this very reason that it contains a germ of truth.
Only a germ: Machines will always be machines; the most perfected robot, always a robot.
But what of living creatures possessing a certain degree of intelligence, like apes?
And apes, precisely, are endowed with a keen sense of imitation.…”
(From “Planet of the Apes” by Pierre Boulle)

Someone dropped by chance a rice packet in a gali leading to the Ganges and in a jiffy many monkeys came down from almost every rooftops to collect the precious cereal grains.
They were absolutly naughty and very noisy so most of the people had to turn back trying to find other ways to reach the ghats…

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Coming Further In

“I have come home at last!
This is my real country!
I belong here. 
This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…
Come further up, come further in!”
(From “The Last Battle” by C.S. Lewis)

In Varanasi (Benaras) there is a temple between Scindia ghat and Manikarnika ghat which is dedicated to Lord Shiva.
This temple doesn’t look like any other in the city because of its amazing sculptures with angels which are all around the shrine.
Those angels are musicians and they all play a different instrument.
Each time I come, there is no one, then I am alone in this dreamy atmosphere.
I know it is a kind of gate to after death as just nearby funeral pyres burn day and night at the cremation ghat which is underneath.
However this is not the reason why there are angels here.
I became close to the priest and his family who are keeping this sanctuary, sometimes he is making a puja for me and each time we meet he applies a refreshing ointment on my forehead made of eucalyptus and turmeric…

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