A photo that was taken back in 2008 while traveling in Punjab that rusted in my memory got a new lease of life as Brandon Hoops of Ethno | Traveler noticed it from afar. We had a long chat about the story behind the shot and challenges for women documentary photographers in India. He has published a small interview in Ethno | Traveler that talks stories from the cultural cross roads of the world. Read it here.
Another Architecture book from India published by TERI, and a few of the Baker shots published again.
I have strange issues dealing with memories of people..places..and all that surround them. They mostly dont mean anything the next moment as I catch them! They have to sit in my bubble jar for years, ferment under its warm bottle necks, peekaboo over the glass layers and finally push and knock on the cap door and shout at large to reach my ear!!
One such moment just blew up of my jar ~ of 2007, from the north east of India! A dark night near the river Simsang in Siju, the tiny village which has only memories of electricity that left them with a blown up transformer some 6 months ago. The night was darker than black, the fire was orange and we all glowed in red.
We didn’t talk the same language! He might have mumbled that he’s the care taker of the river Simsang in his mountain language Garo. He didn’t particularly like my camera I thought and I didn’t care him much when there was still light around. But there was some magic in the crispy fire filaments that made me return and curiously stare at him! He seemed more than a care taker…. a deep secret keeper of the river!
