The Mirror

Stories by the Road 

[narayankaudinya]

Singing the uhuru burn

The case of chasing sun a fat girl wedded to life singing the uhuru burn what will remain of this world continuity and creativity in uncle hassan’s sleep losing his spirits walking away from his favorite tree

her signs his silence her future poetry

a journey to the stone country on top of a bus with Jews kiss less day Taiwan’s highway Terminal eating Imagining an Adivasi cinema Translated museums

is bad hand writing freedom?

Freedom from brain First the god will die and soon men.

Love, like living is commerce and commerce is time and time in the case of the chasing sun that fat girl who wedded to life kept singing the uhuru burn

[narayankaudinya]

from the ongoing work in the northern Indian border with Pakistan and China, “Black Lotus”

[narayankaudinya]

I do not remember why had i gone on this trip. Probably because it was a trip, it came out to be less expressive as much as i saw and drove one of the best for its money car Omni. I have some beautiful memories from my driving days in that trip. The state highway through Punjab, early morning while fields are still reminiscing the going moon. To zojila, to Leh, to Hanle, to tso moreri, to i don't know what unknown pass minus road that came after when suddenly hundred's of horses started running and suddenly took left in the noon. And we took towards sky- a concrete river bed on top of a conical mountain which went all afternoon. Many called it a road. Through a broken bridge, through the ditches connecting another ditch on the Yoga day. While laughing at others. While laughing at ourselves. While stopping before every loop for the mountain up. The dancing carrier. The hallucinations from the petrol fumes. The acid lake that made water white. And made it blue of detergent.  As every bicycle left us behind. Our omni made it across the Rohtang. Carry two people to push it through if theres weight. We needed many only once. On the road with Omni | July 15

[narayankaudinya]

This letter never reached

State Highway number 9 Silda Football ground, West Bengal. ... Rain kept coming that monsoon. If this time home calls, only cry alone.   26july11 Travels have not been too comfortable but its liberating to realize that i could come here. Fields are green everywhere, and the roads red, ponds are over filled, I saw women and young girls bathing in them. It made me feel the worthlessness of getting educated and letting yourself further away from the earth. The only thing one has to learn is the language of the world which has no word in it. The cows, ducks, hen and chicken, goats, they are in plenty lazying around, sleeping, staring, fearing, grazing, walking, running on road and off it. This part of the country side has just filled me with pride of some unknown sense or probably i am feeling just too free on this stretched journey after Bihar. Everything all this while has been like a painting for me. For the first time looking out in a way made me think alot more about me being a story-teller. No painting or a photograph will fill the feeling of how i felt at that particular moment when i saw this beautiful long haired gypsy woman bathing freely in the country side pond behind the palm trees, of how i felt when i saw two young girls afar, taking filled earthen pots with the river water back home. It is a minute change but i felt its so important for the whole universe to keep moving on and its an important part of it. For the water to be taken from one place to another, for those earthen pots to be used. World is moving. Everything is present and its not, everything is true yet its not. I should talk about it and not just write and i wont even write about all the characters i met in this journey, it will take too long and this reliance connection has not been too reliable off-late. But you know Meera, every single body i have shared my time with, they have shared their happiness, every one has made me smile. Bangla has not been in anyway a hindrance not that i know it all, i don’t know it at all apart from a few sentences but my guide for past 26 days has become one of my best ever co-traveller. I feel i owe him a lot as much i can’t dare to compare what to give back. What i owe him is just the love i am carrying from him. I Had been in maoist areas for past 2 weeks almost and even got into a little bit of tension thrice, last happened just yesterday but all ended on a good note as probably they all considered my harmlessness after a point. Well, now when you have told me about your job down there very far, i wonder when and how i can come and spend my time with you. And well, i didn't laugh at your dream Love from a little hut with many children run clothe-less, its raining. Narayan

[narayankaudinya]

photographs are not related to the text  The same year when i rode across Spiti and later went on to teach in Baltistan through out winters. It so happened that i had given myself some time to travel around the rurals of West Bengal when rains came. I wasn’t hoarding images much, i only had an old camera.  Red mud pots taking the pond water home. Breasts that were never seen through the coconut trees and green reflections. Postures of the mind circulating everywhere eating the same color, that mouth carried . A gun saving a hen from being filmed. Which takes me to Odisha. I saw sea for the first time in my life. The sea was wild. And it roared in the day time too. I was surprised to learn that crabs were shy. They couldn’t hide their dance while hiding their identity neither it stopped them to eat moths and drink the soup that filled their smell. Long haired women walking barefoot on insects when electricity left seven yellow bulbs. The three legged dog, the three grandmothers of no one wearing the same colored skirt with blue circles in bengali white selling tea in front of a hair salon. Bengal had that tree where falling started.  West Bengal 2011 

[narayankaudinya]

lines from राजस्थान प्रेम में पागल एक प्रेमी जोड़ा यहां पर्यटन स्थल सिलीसेढ़ झील में एक साथ कूद कर जान दे दी | I crossed Silisedh Lake the same afternoon. It was learnt that they sat for four hours loving each other before deciding to drown. Drowning together. Drowning in love. Together. Watching dying other while dying. Lakes and ponds across subcontinent have this characteristic to carry similar burden.   Jaisalmer to Tanot Jaisalmer to Tanot : Longewala : Pabu ki dhani - After reaching back to Jaisalmer from Khuri i decided to travel to Longewala- a border village and visit Tanot temple. It was 120 kilometres from the city and buses would only go to Ramgarh-half way. So i rented a Suzuki bike and rode for 3 days around border villages. The road to Tanot temple was like riding a snake, and that snake is slithering across the horizon of Sand and Sky that too at night. It was late when i reached .Around 9. I went to the only hotel-dharamsala and found no body there. It was open. And it was empty. Unbolted doors were beating heavily. The wind was making an impression. And over all no body seemed to have any interest either in the temple or in the popular last army post. I seemed to be the only one- once excited visitor to have come to this ghost-not-even-a-town. I sat outside that hotel on earth near my bike, waiting for someone to happen. I even walked around, met couple of giant goats, the size of me. I touched their horns. They let me touch it. My desire didn't stop there. I followed them and then photographed them too. Meanwhile i saw a big man in an army outfit limping towards the empty hotel. I followed. He was the man. After putting up some identity-cal questions i got the room. It should have been cheaper, i said. He stood up and started limped towards one of the room. The hot air that was jailed for numerous months greeted only my face with its warmth. The room had walls. Just that. Blue walls. The floor carried nothing. On one side there was a 5" x 7" image of my favorite Smashan tara right in the middle of the wall and exact opposite was a mirror- same size containing a half glass. He left, for me to figure out this room on my own. There was an almira embedded in the wall. I opened it, with continuous screeching sound i saw many ancient quilts stuffed together. As my tired eyes and shoulders allowed i took the cleanest ones out. One of them seemed to have achieved its maturity over time with all the orgasmic art that seemed flagged out there. I put it away and went on to decide the second most reliable one with color brown for the night. The moment i lied down, i saw a bat look-a-like shape hanging from the roof manually split into two and glued like a chewing gum right above me. Only a part of its wing and one leg intact in shape were visible. Outside a door thumped loudly. I left that room. But then nights of Rajasthan are the most majestic ones. I am kind of sure of it. At times It is like becoming one with everything that is out there. Embracing something valuable that the winds carry in Rajasthan. I went to the roof. There were many mats already stretched out. I chose one. I saw bats flying all over the sky. That day was the third incident that i had with bats and amongst all it was the least interesting one. And now It hardly mattered. I imagined my day, It suddenly seemed satisfying. The journey was fulfilling with the memories of desert and also the filming that had happened in last one week. I must have slept soon afterwards. I had gone to film a music video for a popular Indian Band. After shoot there were few evenings when viru had accompanied me to the loneliest edge of the desert. I sat quietly. He chewed tobacco. It was 355 mornings ago. Six months down, he called me one night, drunk. He told me that he is getting married and asked me if i would come. I went in his reverse wedding. We saw she man dancing. They were close friends of Viru. But viru paid them. We celebrated all evening till early night. Viru groomed himself fast and we were on our 250 kms way from Barmer to Deesa in Gujarat. In between Viru got down towards east and walked in the dark on the sides of the highway sitting and praying, lighting a wick and leaving a coconut five times that night. I was tired. My friends were not excited. All got down, refreshed. People will be ready to celebrate the groom coming.  We reached on time. Some birds were up. It was dark and there was a large red tent roof flapping. Under it everybody slept like bodies after encounter wearing white. Many fans were revolving.    

[narayankaudinya]

One of the two images of my parents wedding ceremony in July 1982.  JAIMAL I met J uncle in the morning after it had rained all night on a freezing january day in 2015. We met in front of an empty swimming pool. His room - 705, is just beneath my room - 805, where i am writing this.

J uncle felt lonely till he met my sister. My sister is a kathak dancer. J uncle would not know about it till one day they meet in the elevator, she moved to make way for another human and her ghungroo rolled in her bag.

J uncle and his balletic wife sold their ancient house, where they sang every morning looking at the emerging orange sun over the Ganges in Varanasi. Their son lived in Delhi. They moved in with him.

His eighty year old body is visibly sad. J uncle grew fond of my sister and attended one of her performances in Delhi. That day I imagine he was the most happiest person present in the auditorium.

In many evenings that i spent in Delhi, we met, went on walks together, always in a circle crossing the empty swimming pool. We somehow never spoke when we crossed that swimming pool. All of a sudden like months and years go suddenly, Rati, my sister was getting married in a month.

One morning J uncle called me downstairs. He sat amongst 100s of old cassettes laid out on his bed. Looking at me, he said. 34 years ago i composed a song for one of my disciple’s wedding. Would you please play it for Rati when Jaimal happens !

[narayankaudinya]

December of 2014 was my only time that i lived Nepal. I was with my friend who detects more imaginative deaths minus mournings. For I have never witnessed a human dying in front of me. That feels like an incomplete awakening. Nepal made me grow backwards. First of all, it cut down my words. It filled me with Roxy; among other things. A monsoon river that had gulped down a strong cow, older sound of old machines. As i started moving towards south I started looking for the film outside, i had seen it eagerly a night before leaving India. It was inside a cable car cabin that moves up to the temple where priests slaughtered all fearful animals. I lost one of my camera around those days. Nepal also showed me the religion, that my parents could never show me. It seemed like an important time. Later, i documented a fair that solely existed for last 350 years and the masses it appealed to, made me lose faith, in the faith of the negotiating kinds. Photographs from the story River of Heads will be on display at Max Muller Bhawan, New Delhi 

[narayankaudinya]

IN MEMORY OF DHAPODE Dhapodi became a shepherd. She looks after seventy goats and four cows. Takes them all for grazing daily finding newer fields and trees to eat from. It happened after she couldn't give Ambaram children. He married again and has five talkative girls and a quiet boy from her younger wife, all going to school except the youngest girl. I remember Dhapodi jiji because we never spoke. It must have been eight days while she fed me each day before leaving to her hut. Falling sick around her was like i became her new goat. She gave me home medicines like my mother is giving me now for cough. One night when the family had gone out, i found her working in the candle light in the kitchen. I asked her if i can make a photograph of her for the memory. She smiled and stood slowly on her one leg, went inside almost making me feel ashamed for even asking, came back wearing a bit of jewelry on her head that must have been from her marriage time three decades ago. I think she looked beautiful. I photographed her in February 2016 while working on my film. Anna Vana Rajasthan  

[narayankaudinya]

WHERE THE CHILDREN GO. II These photographs were made between 2010-2012 while documenting children in their surroundings, travelling across four states of India.  The photographic essay was commissioned by The Naz Foundation. New Delhi 

[narayankaudinya]

WHERE THE CHILDREN GO. I 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 children go missing every day in India. The category of missing children include a number of problems, run-away children or those forced to run away by family and surrounding circumstances. Children who are live in difficult or aggressive environment, trafficked or lost. Often cases are not reported to the police. Children who go missing may be exploited and abused for various purposes from camel jockeys in the Gulf countries to victims of organ trade and even grotesque cannibalism as reported at Nithari village in Noida. There might be many happening, who knows ! There are also a large number of children who run away from homes after dropping out of school or who face difficulties at home. They usually run away to the glamorous big cities where they fall prey to exploiters and are employed in tea stalls, brothels, beggary, etc. Most of the children come from poorer families who do not have access to police services or whose reports are not taken seriously. It cannot be said on an average how many children go missing every year in India. Some reports suggested that it was around 44,500 per annum and another published in an english daily said 10 lac. So, actually no body knows. But it is sure that a child will go missing in our country in ever eight minutes. And it is on the rise, also in untraced cases. The report states that children are often kidnapped or trafficked for prostitution, organ donations, employment, and in rare cases for sacrifice. "Where the childen go" is a long term personal photographic-interview based project that i started working on in 2011, under the name of "Home and the Sky"-It was then funded by the NAZ foundation. I travelled for two months in three Indian states where the average number of orphans were high, amongst many getting infected by HIV+. Somehow it was always at the back of my mind, also because i am around children at my school whenever i am home or even otherwise when you see children wandering, roaming on the streets playing, begging, collecting garbage. I realized that i should take it up again now, work harder towards bringing some sane-ness, and try to find some footings if nothing, at least it will make people around me aware through my work, my involvement. I feel we have to be considerate towards these children who are bereft of all the comfort that we got while growing up in our early unconcious years. Its a hard life and we all should try to make each life better for a loving society and earth.

[narayankaudinya]

Becoming water

One day many feelings together start becoming a tributary. You have to become a bird to see them. Those feelings, carrying a rhythm of wind flowing towards many directions after arduous forgettable detours meeting, together becoming a large one, a feeling of seeing the invisible, after debating with the visible. Thought.

Content becoming an imagination, becoming context.

It does leave all the truths behind. Truth being time and man made the time, can come under the study, evolution of the strongest myths that only our specie acquired and thought it is required to make living easier, like studying in school or university period after period, aware of the progress, timely distributing ones mind in a quest to understand things together while developing a practice of dividing time and hence thoughts unconsciously.

Letting go of all the truths, letting all those edges which will always be in the process of forming a form. Letting unnerving demands be a mere gaze. It will let the conscious conscious of becoming something itself, as subtle as style that can only come after years of doing the similar, yet not the same things.

And the most intricate texture giving it a layer asking it to sustain that character for years slowly acquiring very slowly its most required color. Color like any other in its completeness, no one has complained about a color, questioning it seems only futuristic. Are there any colors left to become ? But only different lotuses in the same pond like ourselves can make that, invisible visible. Things coming together. sculpting of egos filled with old formed truths, Unless we beings start initiating, everything will always be a half time. So become internet without electricity.

[narayankaudinya]

काल-गंगा A short series of images I worked. I had experienced death. I saw faces of the men I knew, changing. Helpless. their hands, moving feet, sand grating clothes. And in Ganga, men washing themselves imagining of sins leaving. Parsis believe in fire, that it is too sacred for the body.   

[narayankaudinya]

Silda Football ground,

State Highway number 9 West Bengal . ... Sharing this letter i wrote to a dear friend while i was away. Rain was not far behind. This happened to be the highlight of my journey. I knew it ended right there with this photograph. I realized home is calling. Travels have not been too comfortable but its liberating to learn that i could come to west bengal at this time as the rains dont have much time to move ahead or to stop, Fields are just too green everywhere, and roads connecting villages are too red, pond's are just too filled, and women and young girls in them, makes me feel at times, its worthless to get educated and get conscious of your own being. The only thing one has to learn is the language of the world which has no word in it. And yes the cows, ducks, hen and chickens and the goats, they are in plenty lazying around, sleeping, staring, fearing, grazing, walking, running on road and off it. This part of the country side has just filled me with pride of some unknown sense or probably i am feeling just too free on this stretched journey after Bihar. Everything all this while has been like a painting for me. For the first time looking out in a way made me think alot more about me being a story-teller. No painting or a photograph will fill the feeling of how i felt at that particular moment when i saw this beautiful long haired gypsy woman bathing freely in the country side pond behind the palm trees, of how i felt when i saw two young girls afar, taking filled earthen pots with the river water back home. It is a minute change but i felt its so important for the whole universe to keep moving on and its an important part of it. For the water to be taken from one place to another, for those earthen pots to be used. World is moving. Everything is present and its not, everything is true yet its not. I should talk about it and not just write and i wont even write about all the characters i have met all this while, it will take too long and this reliance connection has not been too reliable off-late. But you know V, every single body has been a gentle man, every one has made me smile. Bangla has not been in anyway a hindrance not that i know it all, i don know it at all apart from a few sentences but my guide for past 26 days has become one of my best ever co-traveller. I feel i owe him a lot and nothing too. What i owe him is just the love i can give him. Have been in mao-ist area for past 2 weeks almost and even got into a little bit of tension thrice, last happened just yesterday but all ended on a good note as probably they all considered my harmlessness after a point. Well, now when you have told me about your job down there very far, i wonder when and how i can come and spend my time with you. And well, i didn't laugh at your dream 16 July 2011 Love from a little hut with many children running clothe-less, its raining. Narayan

[narayankaudinya]

We were near river Sipna where the tribesmen live. They had danced the whole previous night as we slept in our mud huts. Today, while coming back from Kamla Tai's home we meet this tree. This is teak, watches over Anuradha. She has gone away. Forest starts from here. We were on our way to meet an old sage who pets a monkey, a snake, a cow and three peacock children.