India – Camera Obscura

A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra

Madhur Dhingra — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 18:57:43 +0000

© Madhur Dhingra
Bandar Poonch Range- Tapovan-Garhwal- Indian Himalayas. I had treked alone to Tapovan accompanied by two porters, who carried my equipment, tent & rations. It was a terribly exhausting trek via Bhojbasa and then walking across the extremely dangerous Gaumukh glacier. Being prone to altitude sickness it was all the more worse for me.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Text and photos by Madhur Dhingra.

This photo essay is a very personal journey of mine. The quest started very early in my childhood. I clearly remember buying my first book on Buddhist philosophy at the age of sixteen. This search has continued till date. I come from a family which has been fairly religious all through. In our house Aarti (A Hindu prayer ritual with butter lamps & devotional songs) was performed regularly both morning and evening by my grandfather. This practice was continued by my father all through his life.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dawn at Shivling Peak- Tapovan-Garhwal- Indian Himalayas. The first night en route to Tapvan I stayed at the Lal Baba ashram at Gaumukh. I was provided with meals and hot refreshing tea by the ashram authorities free of cost. The conditions were very severe and night temperatures went down to -6 To - 8 degrees with snow all around. I had reached early, in the first week of April, the snows had not melted yet. In this image one can easily see the knee deep snow conditions at Tapovan. Shiving Parbat is a photographer's delight and one gets to view this peak right from the base to the very top from Tapovan.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

I have never been religious in the orthodox sense. My search has always been more spiritual in nature. The medium through which I began my quest was a camera. I must state here that I have always equated light with God. I am of firm conviction that the darkness of the human soul, (represented as black in my images) finally becomes alive by the play of light (God) on it. This play of light and shade you will notice all through in this photo essay.

© Madhur Dhingra
Zanskar- Ladakh-India. This image was taken while travelling somewhere in the Zanskar region. The sun had set and evening winds were blowing strong, bellowing and raising the sand as they blew along. I saw this old Buddhist monk returning home with his yak in tow. One of my favourite images this one because somehow relate myself to the intense loneliness in this image.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Initially I started wandering in the Himalayas. This wandering first took me to places like Tapovan and Nandanvan in the Gangotri region of Garhwal. Camera in hand I saw God standing right in front of me in the form of these beautiful mountains. The play of light on this majestic abode of Shiva (Lord of Creation & Destruction) was an ethereal sight.

© Madhur Dhingra
Somewhere in Leh- Ladakh - India. This image was shot by me inside an unnamed monastery in Ladakh. Many of these monasteries are centuries old. There is a beautiful calm prevailing inside them. I used to sit inside them for hours, watching light filter in through doors and windows. The occasional eco of the prayer gong would seep deep inside my soul.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

My wanderings now took me to Ladakh & Zanskar regions again in the Indian Himalayas and also the land of Dalai Lama. I was mesmerised by the landscape, monasteries and people of Ladakh. The quiet prevailing inside these monasteries which are centuries old, acted as balm on my taught nerves. Light filtering in from the windows and doors was indeed beautiful. There was an embedded laziness prevailing in the atmosphere. Everyone and everything seemed so relaxed and poised. I would sit inside these monasteries for hours at a stretch soothing my distraught mind. I would watch quietly people go in and out of these temples. Occasionally someone would sound the prayer gong and its echo would seep deep inside my soul. Through my images I have tried to bring back to you the beauty, serenity and peace I found there.

© Madhur Dhingra
On route from Kargil to Padam(Zanskar-Ladakh-India). While travelling from Kargil to Padam. I saw this family sitting on the roadside. Penniless and tattered but happy.
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My next visits were to Banaras (also known Varanasi or by the ancient name of Kashi). Now this was going to be an experience that will remain with me for the rest of my life. Banaras is one of the oldest living cities of the world. Mark Twain the English author once wrote” Banaras is older than history, older than tradition, even older than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”. I would get up very early in the morning much before daybreak and go and sit on the banks of Dashashwamedh Ghat. Activities on these ghats would start that early too. Sitting there I watched sadhus, pujaris, devotes, pilgrims take their morning dip in the river Ganga. The morning Arti reminded me over and again of the Aarti that my grandfather and father used to perform at our home. Those fading memories suddenly had become alive.

© Madhur Dhingra
Haridwar - Uttara Khund- India. The year 1998 brought about Purn Kumbh the largest of all Hindu congregations. The word Kumbh denotes the shape like that of a pot or pitcher. Kumbh signifies Creation or Shrishti. ‘Shrishti’ or the creation is of the shape of a pot. Kumbh or Creation is eternal, the form may have been different before. there were hutments built for sadhus in general by the kumbh authorities across the river bed. I would visit those and sit with some "real" sanyasis , listen to their discourses and hear them sing bhajans(devotional songs). this was a very nice and peaceful experience.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

The ghats of Kashi are a riot of colour and activity. People from all over India come to these ghats to perform rituals, in such colourful attires. On the other hand I saw sadhus, sanyasis, pujaris and widows dressed in spotless pure white clothings. This mixture of colour and pure white in their attires was enchanting. Small temples can be seen in hundreds all along these ghats. I would sit inside these temples waiting for my chance to get my perfect shot. Nowhere in all my travels up till now have I found light as beautiful as in Banaras. I will not hesitate for a moment to call it divine. Rituals right from the birth of a child, mundan (first hair removal ceremony of a newborn), marriage, birthdays, anniversary death, and also later to perform rites for their safe passage to heaven, all are being performed on these very banks for centuries.

© Madhur Dhingra
Haridwar - Uttara Khund- India. One day while spending some time with these sanyasis in the Kumbh ,I saw this young energetic sanyasi performing some Tantric rites. I stood there watching him perform for quite some time. His concentration was total.
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In the meantime the Purn Kumbh (the largest Hindu congregation held every 12 years) was on at Haridwar. This again has become a very interesting event to relate. I was aghast to see the completely naked so called Naga sadhus, storming the streets of Haridwar. It was here I came to know from the local inhabitants of Haridwar that this whole show was a complete farce. Most of these so called ascetics only stormed the streets during the Kumbh and neither did they live in the remoteness of the Himalayas leading a renounced life. On the contrary they lived in air conditioned lavishly furnished Akharas (Akhara means literally the “place for practice for the protection of Hindu religion”) in Haridwar itself. They were a weird sight. Here in Haridwar I saw them fight pitched battles with the police a day before the main procession was to start. Downright criminals to the very core most of them.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This beautiful image I captured on one of the ghats of banaras. i would get up early in the morning and go and sit inside these small temples spread in hundreds all along the ghats .people would come and go, oblivious of me sitting in one dark corner with a camera.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

On the day of the main procession I got up early in the morning and positioned myself on the roof top of a house near the Niranjani Akhara(Niranjani is one of the prominent Akharas in Haridwar). This was very early in the morning and I was testing the auto focus of my telephoto 300mm canon lens when I saw a group of Nagas in gathered in the Akhara compound. I was taken aback when I saw one Naga fiddling with the genitals of the other Naga, “and I took the shot” (later to appear on the first page of the Indian Express Daily). Promiscuity is commonplace with these so called Naga sadhus.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. The ghats of Kashi are a riot of colour and activity. People from all over India come to these ghats to perform rituals, in such colourful attires.Rituals right from the birth of a child, mundan (first hair removal ceremony of a newborn), marriage, birthdays, anniversary death, and also later to perform rites for their safe passage to heaven, all are being performed on these very banks for centuries.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

There were hutments built for all visiting sadhus in general by the Kumbh authorities across the river bed of the Ganges. I would visit those and sit with some real sanyasis, listen to their discourses and hear them sing Bhajans (devotional songs). This was a very nice and spiritual experience.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. These two brothers had come to the dashashvamedh ghat after performing the final rites of their father at manikarnika ghat. it is believed by the hindus that a dip in the ganga purifies them of all sins committed during their passage of life.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Now a special reference to the Manikarnika Ghat “The Burning Ghat”is needed. People from all over India come to Kashi (ancient name of Banaras) to cremate their dead at Manikarnika. It is believed by Hindus that a cremation at Manikarnika Ghat gives the human soul an unhindered passage to heaven. Pyres are being lit here continuously without getting extinguished for the last 3000 years. But it was on this burning Ghat that my worst nightmare was to begin. I would visit this Ghat daily looking at the activities. It was not very long before I realised that whenever a body of a poor person would come in, it would be cremated in a bizarre manner.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. People from all over India come to Kashi (ancient name of Banaras) to cremate their dead at Manikarnika. It is believed by Hindus that a cremation at Manikarnika Ghat gives the human soul an unhindered passage to heaven. Pyres are being lit here continuously without getting extinguished for the last 3000 years. This image shows the continuous gloom prevailing over Manikarnika Ghat.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

It required two ‘muns’ of wood at the least (mun is an Indian measure of weight equivalent to 20 kgs) to cover a human body completely for cremation. But the persons accompanying the dead body did not have that much money in their pocket. So only that much wood was purchased in which only the torso could be covered by wood. The legs and head were left hanging out and the pyre lit. The head would get burnt in a horrific manner with the head and feet falling away from the torso partially burnt. Then these torn away parts were picked up and put into the pyre or thrown into the Ganges. It was literally making a bar-be-queue of the mortal remains . This whole sequence was so bizarre that I decided to get it on film and show it to the world. Man really was meeting his god in Kashi in a very bizarre manner. Tantriks (Aghoris) also hound this Ghat eating human flesh and making love to a dead woman on a full moon night.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. The beautiful morning light of Banaras is equally kind to both living and dead. I visited the manikarnika ghat one early morning to find it more busy than usual. The light filtering in from the rising smoke and ashes was both beautiful and eerie.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

One interesting image I shot here is of some dogs copulating right on where the pyres were being burnt. I saw the eyes of the people more interested in watching the dogs copulating and found them giggling, whereas right in front of them burnt the pyre of somebody very close to them. Hedonism co-existed strongly amidst death.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This was a chance image while I roamed around the Manikarnika. According to Hindu tradition, people who die under unnatural conditions like a snake bite or accidents, sanyasis & infants, their bodies are not burnt but are given a water burial .I saw this lonely body on the banks of Ganga with nobody visible in sight. A herd of buffalos had gathered all around it as if waiting to take the body away. Incidently the vahan (vehicle) of Yamraj (Lord of Death ) is a buffalo.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

My final image is of a lonesome skull lying amidst blue burnt wood and ashes, staring right into the eyes of the onlooker, as if asking some unanswered questions. All hopes ambitions fears loves hates affections had died down into a cold blue colour. “Man had finally met his god”?

For more photos and story please visit Madhur Dhingra website.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This final image is of a lonesome skull lying amidst blue burnt wood and ashes, staring right into the eyes of the onlooker, as if asking some unanswered questions. all hopes ambitions fears loves hates affections had died down into a cold blue colour.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Why I made “Variety Entertainment”, by Nandini Muthiah

Nandini Muthiah — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:04:12 +0000

Text and photographs by Nandini Muthiah.

My work is primarily about identity. I am constantly looking, watching people and seeking out things that I identify with. I see something of myself in what I shoot or I try to relate to what it is I shoot in some form. It may be, the Indian middle class lifestyle, something that is so confined and restricted and regulated that might fascinate me. I see it all around me but yet I can’t be a part of it as it is very unlike what I am or how I was brought up.

Visual memory therefore plays an important part in my photographic work. A recent project, which is being showcased here, currently named “Variety Entertainment”, is based on my memory of an event that took place in my childhood.

I photographed school children at a school fancy dress competition. I set it up at a particular school. I introduced a particular background and professional lights. The rest was in the hands of the children and the teachers of the school. The children who participated were from kindergarten up to 13 years of age.

Most schools which can, will hold a fancy dress competition for their wards once a year either on the school’s annual day celebrations or on November 14th, which in India is celebrated as ‘Children’s Day’ to honor a former prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru who was very fond of children. This project was produced under a Grant I received from the Tierney Foundation, New York, in July 2008.

I plan to continue the project for a few years and produce a book at the end of it.

I remember as a child going to a fancy dress birthday party dressed as a witch along with my sister who was also dressed as a witch. Another time we went as pirates to Christmas party! Later on when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I remember attending the birthday party of a girl named Ketaki Sood, clad as a 19th century Englishman in his night shirt and night cap along with a candle holder and all. It was such a simple outfit to make and wear and it won me the first prize and a lot of respect from the girls at the party! My mother and sister designed that outfit for me! So for me the idea of a fancy dress competition brings back happy and fun memories of a time gone by.

The whole idea of a fancy dress competition to me brings to mind a parents’ ingenuity, as they are the ones who either procure the outfit or make the outfit for the child. I find that how the parent dresses you depends greatly on the kind of socio-economic background they come from. In my case my parents had immense exposure to the western civilization, which in the ‘80’s was an uncommon phenomenon in India. They traveled overseas regularly which was not possible by everyone. Therefore their exposure resulted in us going to Christmas parties and birthday parties dressed as witches, pirates and as a sleeping 19th century Englishman.

Mind you the fancy dress competitions I went to as a child in which I took part in was not at school, in both situations it had nothing to do with school. Today, to a great extent fancy dress competitions occur mostly in schools especially middle class schools. I have found that for parents it is a way to ‘show off’ their children’s talents, for along with the ‘character’ outfit the children are expected to recite rhymes, poems, alphabets and or dialogues of the characters they play. I sometimes think that parents live vicariously through their children and nowhere is it more evident than in such a scenario. They want their children to be what they never could be.

I find that in the middle class home, the parent so badly wants the child to excel at everything he/she does. They are willing to hire a costume and have a makeup man do the special make up required so that the child looks more like the character they are dressed as, at a great expense. In fact I sense that the judges (often the school teachers themselves are the judges!) at these competitions give better marks to those children who wear these specially hired costumes and maquillage. (Strangely I never thought to ask which child won the first prize in their respective age category and I never thought about it until I wrote it here.)

What I found most intriguing was that some children came dressed as Hindu Gods and Goddesses. To me it shows how god fearing the middle class is and it also shows that we in India consider God to be of Human form. For us to dress as God, as a child or as an adult is not considered blasphemous.

Costume houses that started off as suppliers to the movie/film industry have found that this line of business of hiring out costumes for fancy dress competitions is lucrative enough. These shops where you hire costumes, wigs etc are so few and the outfits look so tired and worn out yet they continue to be circulated what ever their state of disrepair may be. All the shops have the same characters to hire out! So naturally you will see the same character or personage appearing in different age groups, as you will see in my series.

Why do children and even adults love the idea of a fancy dress party or a fancy dress competition? It probably lies in the fact that we love to pretend to be someone else from time to time, especially as kids. Dressing up is great fun. For that short span of time you get to be someone great and important and you get your five minutes of fame in front of an audience, what could be more thrilling.

I wanted to relive a memory of my childhood and I feel that most people do recollect with a giggle or a laugh the times the got dressed up for fancy dress competitions in their childhood. Ultimately, it is interesting for me to look at the South Indian middle class family through their choice of costume for their child. It gives me a lot of food for thought. I hope it does so for the viewer also.

For more photographs please visit Nandini Muthiah website.

The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman

Stuart Freedman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:00:14 +0000

Women gossiping amongst flowers in the garden at a society party.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

Text and photos by Stuart Freedman.

Delhi, one of India’s most polluted and brutal cities, is rarely thought of as a place with an abundance of scenic beauty. However this, and all the previous cities of Delhi have had extraordinary links with gardens and green spaces.

In this work I have been trying to image the city in a new way: an attempt to show the city without the clichés of traffic, extreme poverty and affluence. Over the last two years, I’ve tried to use Delhi’s gardens, plants and green spaces to give me an insight into the lives of its people in a way that reflects the changing India and how the city’s relationship with nature has endured in some of the most surprising places.

A couple share an intimate moment in the Garden of the Five Senses.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

These gardens – these greens spaces – are a pause in the city allowing a dialogue between what Delhi was, what it is and its ever changing people. Delhi has always been a city of migrants. Every peasant that comes shoe-less to Nizamuddin railway station from Bihar to build the new ‘Shining India’ brings with him the memory of the quiet of the fields of his village. His garland offering at a shrine is his version of the planted garden in affluent South Delhi. The memories clash and mingle with the previous generation’s space and greenery and those layered memories build what Delhi is becoming as a city.

A woman’s floral sari and a concrete wall.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

Gardening has been popular in India from ancient times. The Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Kama Sutra all have passages that describe and recommend gardens and their layout. It is said that the Buddha was born under a peepal tree in a garden and the Bodhi tree under which he attained nirvana is holy to Buddhists. Islam has always had a fascination with the garden and Delhi, always a Muslim city at heart, has many fine examples of Mughal gardens. It is certainly true that gardens provide a secular space in the city and in an increasingly divided India where some see its minorities as a threat, (particularly) Sufi shrines attract worshippers from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds seeking solace and offering prayers.

A gardener fills a birdtable with seed in the Mughal Gardens at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

The creation of ordered European-style landscapes was pivotal to the process of colonization and it was against this backdrop that gardens emerged as a cultural symbol of British control. The Victorian ideals of parks as ‘improving spaces’ were key as were the design of Lutyens’ wide boulevards. Functional on an impressive scale to show the city’s inhabitants who was in control they further facilitated movement of troops and traffic where needed. In that sense, the colonial space sent conscious and unconscious messages to the locals and the English alike. The ordered plantings of Western gardeners, influencing a generation of Indian gardeners, have worked in that tradition: trim hedges, cut grass that are still seen all across the Bungalow zone of New Delhi.

Syed Yahya Bukhari, President of the Jama Masjid Mosque in Old Delhi, relaxes on his lawn in his secluded garden next to the Mosque.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

Boys play cricket on a gardened Traffic Island.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

Indians have an interesting relationship with what little personal space they can occupy. People are literally squashed together and nature often breaks through the grim surroundings. Many plants and trees (some holy to Hindus and Muslims alike) are cultivated in the most bizarre places. At the edges of motorways and between illegally built structures, people tend to nature. Whilst working on a television documentary about water in the city, I noticed that in a slum where we were filming, many of the residents had roof gardens full of plants. This when they had open sewers and no running water. Returning to photograph them I was struck by the way in which plant pots, artfully arranged, somehow made the difficult surroundings a little more liveable. A shy housewife told me that she took pleasure “… in seeing the plants grow like my sons…”.

Radhika and her neighbour Saroj on her roof garden in one of Delhi’s largest slum’s Kesumpur Pahari.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

For myself, Delhi’s gardens are everywhere: in the weeds by the choking roads, the flowers on a woman’s sari and in the garlands left rotting on the streets, forgotten yet somehow revered and certainly not removed. For this work I’ve also tried to show the chaos of Delhi (and indeed India) in a way that I hope reflects the triumph of nature reclaiming the streets in an arbitrary way – much like the jungles reclaiming lost temples in the work of Kipling’s Jungle Book.

Every morning across the city, people are woken by the cries of the Mali (gardener) on his pushbike offering his services for the day. More modern and affluent areas often have roof terraces, and among the rapidly expanding middle classes gardening has ironically gained popularity again, as it gives a touch of respectable homeliness. For this work, I’ve also spent time at society parties where silk saris flit effortlessly amongst banks of the most extraordinary explosions of floral colour, the flowers themselves almost lighting the event as dusk settles.

Delhi-wallahs have come to utilise the streets’ trees as shops and workspaces. Kishori Lal a tailor originally from Rajasthan is typical. He has worked under the same Ashoka tree in New Friends Colony for twenty two years. “There was no footpath here then. The tree that you see on the footpath is standing on a narrow strip of land between two sewage lines that run underneath. I asked the maali (gardener) to plant it there and got the sapling for him. If I have any trouble, the saheb helps me out. After so many years here, like this tree I have also taken roots in Delhi. But who belongs to this place? Even the sahibs are from outside”.

A man greets a man buying flowers with a gesture of Namaste at the Flower Market.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.

For many though it is the parks that offer a microcosm of Delhi life. The New Delhi Municipal Council maintains one thousand one hundred and seven acres of greenery. One of the largest parks in New Delhi, Lodi Gardens, is a sprawling hundred-acre site of trees and lawns and the tombs of the Lodi Sultans. Here one can find cricket matches, sellers of all kinds of food and all kinds of Delhi-wallah at play regardless of class. It’s the parks that somehow give a vital clue to this work, so far unfinished. In a conservative city that has little privacy, parks are quiet corners where lovers can meet and it is here that private dramas are held in public.

Public spaces, private lives.

Worshippers (both Hindu and Muslim) pray and make offerings over the tomb of Hazrat Nizamuddin Awlia.
© Stuart Freedman
Please visit The Gardens of Delhi – Public Spaces, Private Lives, by Stuart Freedman for the full size image.