All posts filed under: India

Brahma Calls To Pushkar: Travelling with Parents to Man Mahal and other stories: An Ode To Photographic February

Something unlikely happened in February. I wrote a letter for the first time, to send it far away; away across the seven seas wishing someone love, birthday wishes and health. And subtly felt that I should start doing it more often. Through writing at least, making unknown known, to the people who are close but far, sending Postcards to you. As it would be great to support our age old Letter/Postal services to keep working in this digital world.  As it was also the birth month of my Mother. I kept planning that my parent’s travel, somewhere they had never been to. More so when they are more like Pilgrims than tourists, so wherever they can find a calling connection with the local lord, a deity of a city, a region; they go there happily. And that high of happiness had eluded them for the longest time. Much before the Virus locked our gates. The orders had come to open the schools. Ma and I had already started planning the opening of our school. We …

Last Few Days of Winter from my friend Rinku’s Home, in Naggar- Himalayas: A Photo-Story

You know I love Delhi for its years old rich history, but more often than less, it has only been a pass for me towards the mountains. I love the Himalayas more. And in last one decade and half, I have found myself reaching to Naggar than anywhere else. It may also be how this quaint small village found me finding. Also Read: Birdsong- the first poem i wrote after reaching Naggar In 2007, while riding my bike from Delhi, looking for a place to stay for the night, each person i asked from directed me towards Naggar. Nagar in Hindi simply means a ‘city’, or so i thought that once i reach the city i will find a place. But the altitude kept getting higher as i rode in the night getting skeptical of ever reaching any so called ‘city’. But when I finally reached there, the first thing my senses noticed was the fragrance of Devdar trees. It was dark in the night and cricket sang the song of the moon. There were …

Jyoti Bhatt : A Tribute to a Living Legend : A Photographic Essay on Rural Gujarati Indian Life(1971-1987)

Today, he is 87 and I will only wish that somehow a film compiling his works, his life, no matter however directed, should come out before we lose all of it. His experiences of that time and era must be recorded.

Days in the Hidden Valley of Mandal and a Small trek to Ma Anusuyadevi Temple : A Photographic Essay- III

While studying culture and ancient practises in the Higher Himalayas.Continuing from Pandava Forest and the Brahma Kamal : The Nights of Change in the Himalayas and Finding Brahma Kamal : On a Rainy night from Delhi to Chamoli : ँ : Sumanto was waiting by the roadside, in front of the fisheries department. It was late in the night, very late by the mountain ways of life. Yet the most relieving part was that i wasn’t alone. With me was the last government bus, which i had to run after, in Rudraprayag to catch it. Had it not been that moment, i wouldn’t be making it even in my 30th hour of leaving New Delhi. It was cold. It was heavy. The restrain of the night, one which arrives after many days of rain. The climatic depression could still be felt. I could hear the droplets dropping off the leaves as I could hear myself heaving. The bus stopped. I bid byes to the driver, the conductor as i had been the only one riding …

Remember me with a Lotus: Memoirs of heaven and birds in Kashmir- IV/VII

Narayan, do you know why I am here today? I kept my silence. I couldn’t see my father when he died. I wasn’t there. He had stopped me from leaving home but I left regardless and all my life i have been living with this guilt that i couldn’t even gave my hands for his body. I wasn’t there with him when he wanted me most and it had needled me every moment. You know, when he was young, he too came on this yatra, with someone like you, his friend. I remembered his stories of bathing in the coldest waters of Sheshnag.

Life and nothing more- II/VII

Continuing from Call of the Now, for the Great Himalayan Road Reunion. : ँ : To Srinagara, to zojila, to Leh, to Hanle, to the land that invoked my spirit, beyond the Indus, towards the Karakoram, to the parents of my children in Turtuk, to the man who flipped, to all the treks that lead to mahadeva and Gaura; to the top of that Himalayan mountain where the first tyre burst, to i don’t know what pass that came after where hundred’s of horses ran just to take left, and we took towards sky. Stone laden river bed that kept us moving on a conical mountain all afternoon, many called it a road. Through a broken bridge, through the ditches connecting another ditch on the World Yoga day. To stopping in front of the snow, and drinking it. To dipping in the coldest river Tirthan, to filling stomach from the river Chandrabhaga. To standing all night under the milky way. To crying for my parted child, to buying eyes for Rasool bhai. While laughing at …

My Soul Journal and Expecting Times to Dip in the Rivers of the World

From time to time, a dip in the river changes your perception about that river you just became with. She starts knowing you and you her. To start with, first of all she calms you down. Slowly changing your inner nature. And gradually of the outside. It may even happen that hundreds of dips later over the years you may start earning some qualities of that river. Your temperature of the body gets strengthened and so does your smile. And if you are open as you naturally should be, like a child; your ever expanding nature will carry you then to the places that can only be created behind your closed eyes. Sailing along patterns of current, looking at forms, colours, patterns, walls, speculating other dimensions in the dark, to the sounds of birds and leaves, of burning dead trees and water ripples, hearing bodies visually and later, very slowly language. Sometimes a small reaction changes the whole tail of events. Sometimes the start itself is the end. But the dip is important. Because that …