All posts filed under: Social Documentary Projects

One Deep Journey to the Indian South : A Visual Study of Thiruvegappura Ambala Observing the Culture and Music of God’s Own Country

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There is one advice I must give. Travel; at least once in your lifetime get yourself a one way ticket to any place that has ever called you. Solo is better, just like Fear of the unknown is good. I would say, rather pounce on it and do it all the way. And even do it, as you doubt your self; setting aside gloom, prepare yourself to become aware of every breath that is going to come to you. Travel. Ever since February and March graced me to undertake an odyssey to the Indian South, it opened grand doors to a time and space that weren’t only old but preserved for centuries the fragrance of its tradition, from corruption that we have become accustomed to. Ceremonies, rituals, chants and most importantly the discipline of the two magic hours; to become conscious of the rise and the setting of the sun, and it being celebrated like a reserved festival for the soul with utmost attention, precision while guiding oneself to flow in following the cycle of …

SINGSONG : Finding the King With a Golden Voice of Cambodia – A Photographic Film

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In December 2018, I rented a bicycle and started recording songs of the people I would meet in my travels around in Cambodia. Through the sound filled in my ears I slowly started seeing. But few days later I realised listening, sitting in a room that all the songs that people sang were of the same singer. Sinn Sisamouth, the father with the golden voice of Cambodia. I started researching on this singer and soon learnt that Sinn Sisamouth was the most revered singer of Cambodia and South-east Asia then. He had gone missing under mysterious circumstances and was most likely killed in 1976 by the Khmer Rouge regime. And his songs were banned for the next four years to come. Khmer rouge was in power from 1975-79. It is estimated that the brutal regime claimed the lives of more than 1.9 million people. That was around 28 percent of the total population of Cambodia, eliminated. The regime tried to control and take the country back to the Middle ages, forcing millions of people from …

Bateshwar Temples from the eyes of the legendary Archaeologist KK Muhammad: A Photo Essay and FILM

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My earliest memory of meeting KK Muhammad was in his white room, filled with books to the brim, touching the tall old roof of the Red Fort Complex, his newly ancient home. Astounded, I asked him if he would ever finish reading all these books! Smiling, he said, “Narayan an age comes when you don’t keep books to read them, they read me daily instead. I only use them for references”. Somehow I carried this memory for long, and since then had no guilt for keeping as many books myself, thinking either way of someday reading or at least being read by them. I also remember him today as he came out to be one of the most important person who was behind the archaeological excavations at Ayodhya, that according to him clearly indicated the presence of a temple below the mosque. Father of one of my filmmaker friend, with whom i was fortunate to work together in the making of this film, that became a tribute, a testimony for his commendable and courageous work …

Where the Children go

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Among themselves they feel free. Independent yet in a boundary, vulnerable and not sure about tomorrow. Kids are those whom, while you watch them in your most baleful of moods they still make you smile. The essential human truth, pitted against modernity – is invincible. There is a child in a man wanting to go back to the womb. The shadows of a festering burden of the next crop of humans, the unclaimed, unborn, and the just born. The Indian state perceives the child parent relationship to be a legacy of tribute to a social order, more than a right of the child. When a child is separated from his/her parent, it is not viewed as the duty of the state to provide that child with a family environment. Adoption is supervised by the state, but India does not have a long term foster care or alternate care system outside of institutionalization. A study estimates that there are about 44 million destitute children and yet only 5000 are adopted each year. A countless number of …