The street in India is so rewarding, and not simply because of the sheer amount of activity found there. This activity is variously, and often simultaneously, intense, authentic, informative, open, lyrical, poised, majestic, curiously intimate, spontaneous, unaware, welcoming, indifferent, unassuming, routine. The simplest, most mundane, prosaic tasks can be done with such lyricism, and it […]
manikarnika
Manikarnika. The main cremation ghat along the River Ganges. A continuous daily round of cremations, conducted on any one of four or five platformed sites situated left and right of a central staircase running down from the main riverside thoroughfare of the city down to the Ganges itself. At any time, chanting families descend the […]
on being shorn, and other animations
The researcher warned us to take everything told us by the Doms and their assistants with a grain of salt. They said that, as part of the cremation ritual at the Manikarnika Ghat, the chief mourner would have a complete shave before the proceedings could start. This man was having his full beard shorn in […]
sari drying
Back to the Ganges, and lines and triangles and circles and saris. A woman gives orders to someone off-scene while she holds out a sari to dry in the fierce mid-morning sun along the River Ganges in mid Feb 2013. Shot on a faulty Leica M4 with a 50mm Collapsible Summicron for which the […]
wedding dancers
Along the street leading from Godwalia down to the Ganges there is a fork in the road, the right fork being a short distance down to Dashashwamedh Ghat. It was along here that I heard drums being played, and noticed this group of people dancing in the street. The next day, […]
sannyasin
Not far from Godwalia, a compound, the back of which a courtyard lined with sparse rooms homing Sannyasin. When we visited most were in Allahabad, attending the Kumbh Mela. The few remaining were too old or ill to go. Sannyasin (for male, the female is Sannyasini) are renouncers, leaving behind their former lives and their families, stepping […]
morning ritual
Not far from Godwalia in Varanasi sits the Mukti Bhavan. This photo shows a ceremony I witnessed one morning, conducted by the resident ritual priests. The woman was a participant in the ceremony. Later on in the proceedings she would also bring in her baby. I was not sure exactly what the ceremony was for. […]
visual record of seeing in the process of seeing
The two pictures in this post were, again, taken on the trip to Varanasi, India. Both are scenes from along the banks of the River Ganges. Although the trip was actually part of a journalism project, for which the photos needed to be content driven, the two photos here are of a different kind, taken […]
bicycle repair
Immediately parallel to the River Ganges within the city of Varanasi is a stretch of road lined with buildings of final grandeur and disrepair, a mine of material for street photography. I walked down this street on several occasions, looking out for interesting scenes to evolve. These two photos I got on the penultimate day […]
no cure here
Broken boat, broken limb, broken river. And there is much broken about the Ganges, with seemingly little official will to fix it, in contrast to people’s belief in its curative powers. Struts mirror crutch, work suspended, no cure to be had here. February 2013, Varanasi, on the banks of the River Ganges.