Varan Bhaat

Music, music, magic. Trying to describe the atmosphere at the NH7 Weekender 2011 can only be a futile attempt; you had to have been there. That said, here are some pictures from the three day music festival, regardless.

This narrative, although anything but subtle, seems especially poignant in light of the latest "Occupy" protests. For me, greed, always was, and always will be, one of the greatest evils that human beings are guilty of.

Till date, this remains one one of my most personal narrative sequences. I did it the year after my grandfather, 'Baba', as he was know to the family, had passed away; things were finally starting to return to "normal" and I actually had time to grieve. I still have the photograph that I have used as the primary object of focus in this series, a portrait photograph of him in a suit and tie. The amazing thing about this portrait is that no matter where you are sitting in the room, it looks like he is staring directly at you, gently reassuring you that he will always be there to give you strength and resolve when you need it.

Pune's yearly Jazz festival was a little "damper" for wear (no percussion pun intended), but indoors or outdoors, the vibes were still fantastic.

Djembes, sore fingers, love, happiness, euphoria, and a pulse. A pulse that really made me feel alive.

The reason behind the name of this gallery is one that deserves mention. My dear friends Arshia and Sanjay, were in possession of an original photograph of Max Roach, the master drummer in his element, frozen in motion, poised for infinity, blurring and rippling through time. They let me have this photograph for a summer. I hung it on my wall and looked at it endlessly, every single day of that summer. Subsequently, I developed a special love for photographing musicians, and a lifelong desire to capture moments that embody the energy of that Max Roach photograph.

Although a far cry away from the style that I eventually came to call my own, Henri Cartier-Bresson was nonetheless one of the most important influences in my early days of photography. To me, all of these images inspire the feeling of having captured the 'decisive moment', a moment where time itself seems to stand still, and the world seems to have taken on a divine balance. Many of the images here are close to my heart because they are so random and represent such a wide gamut of photographic situations.

Portraits are perhaps the single hardest type of images for me as a photographer. Perhaps this is a reflection of my own prejudice and my belief that oftentimes the art of photography is reduced to plebeian fare by most modern portraiture. Portraits that are not posed for; the few seconds between a subject acknowledging the presence of the camera and becoming conscious on account of it...these are the moments that I have always sought out and continually seek to capture.

The annual Ganpati festival is a time of great celebration. The culmination of the festival is a day long parade where Ganesh idols are taken down to the river and immersed into the water. These images are from the immersion parade in 2006, a particularly joyous and colorful year for the festivities. Rather than focusing on the often overdone, 'lonely planet' shots of pomp and grandeur, I tried to focus on the ordinary people, the ones that are there year after year, and more importantly, the ones that make the festival what it is.

There is perhaps no thrill that I have experienced more exhilarating than that of being on stage. As such, I revel in the realm often dismissed by others, where the photographed image is two removes away from 'reality'. Although photographing actors is a difficult proposition at best, it is nonetheless an endeavor worth pursuing. There are few moments in life that are so charged with energy and anticipation as a competent actor who has found their voice on the stage before you.

A hodge-podge of images that I have collected over the years that defy categorization. Strange though it may seem, this gallery contains most of the photographs that I would describe as closest to my heart. Perhaps this is because they simply happened and as such, do not have any associations of anticipation or exhilaration in my memory of having taken them. Rather, the joy of these images came later, when I skimmed past them, only to do a double take and realize the beauty of what was in front of me.

These ladies are the rag-pickers of my city. They are the ones that are responsible for keeping the streets clean (literally) but are oftentimes marginalized and denied basic privileges such as government-provided health insurance. Tenacious as always, they organized a protest rally in order to be heard, one of the results of which is the image gallery that you see here. These images continually remind me of the gross hypocrisy that exists in society, a poignant example of which is the demand for clean streets without providing for the people who do the cleaning.

Spring Break, Junior Year...One of the most amazing weeks of my life. I was part of a group from college that were given grants to do small research projects in Belize. Most of these pictures are from a weekend 'home-stay' at a traditional Mayan village. Chicken, beans, tortillas, football, Sunday morning mass with a four-piece band, smiling children joyously running from home to home, and people filled with warmth and love...these are just a sampling of my memories from this trip.

Straight out of 'Introduction To B&W Photography', I was perhaps more open to experimentation than I have been ever since. I used every camera I could lay my hands on, including some large format monsters that were almost as hard to transport as they were to photograph with. Need I mention, this was during the days where I developed my own film, printed all of my own pictures, and almost perpetually smelled like chemicals from the dark room. I also built a few 'sets' from scratch, staging them at night and taking them down before the break of dawn. For me, this was a period of intense learning where the possibilities were endless.