Tat Tvam Asi is a psychological expedition through a space hidden away from the chaos of the urban city life. Surrounded by the news of mob lynchings, political violence, hatred and confronting personal crises, provoked me to go on a journey, not knowing the destination. A place where my very identity would matter less. An unknown land. This helped me to restore a balance in myself and to find my position in the world again.
It is a phrase which translates to Thou Art That (That you Are) in English. Although this phrase manifests itself through different literal interpretations in texts in India, it essentially connects us to a sense of being, a sense of the self, of who we are. In my life, this bears significance to my sense of belonging in a place. Growing up I was always intrigued by the idea of a utopia, a world where love would triumph over ego. That would go on to define who I was. However, the world is not meant to be so. It never was. Seeing my own family fall apart and confronting the loss of a loved one made me ask myself what exactly is Home? Does Home define one’s Identity? Can any place far away from where I live define my “Home”? Can I construct a reality in my mind and call it my “Home”?
That is when Rishikesh happened to me. An escape from the starkness of reality or was it even real? I don’t have those answers. Maybe I never will. Maybe it was a way to confront what could not change, a pain, an agony, an abyss of despair. Rishikesh is a “home” to many: Broken hearts, lost souls, dreamers, alike. A dream tucked away in the foothills of the largest mountains in India, the Himalayas. This journey is not so about the place as much as it is about my own void and the need to look for a place, I could call mine, the need to belong somewhere. My sense of incompleteness being projected into a vast space of light, often interspersed with fragments of dark. In this work, people exist for me but only as inconspicuous identities, a fragile trace of the body lost. Maybe those hidden figures were just my projections: any man who is lost looking to find his belonging, to pray for an answer. As someone who turned himself against the notion of religion, it was my test to face the question of what religion really is and how can one escape it by merely looking into oneself.
Photographing the same space of land for a prolonged time became a way to reconcile. To observe, absorb and react was the only way out. The rhythmic spaces between the images, between nothingness and appearance of primordial rocks, balancing between light and dark becomes my reality, my life. I start reacting to every detail of life and nature around me. In all the while, I only photographed a young guy as a reflection of my portrait, hiding behind shrubs and thorns, wanting to come out and yet having a resistance to confront. That was my self-portrait. My reality then.
I do not know if the experience is a shared journey or just mine. All I can say is that this temperance of a "Home" called Rishikesh is a part of my living truth. I am there, distant from the reality of a past. I am there, all by myself in a world of my own. My “Home”.
“To question the darkness, but at the same time to not give up on looking for the light.”
Still image excerpts.
“To question the darkness, but at the same time to not give up on looking for the light.”
http://www.bjp-online.com/2018/10/photography-as-a-way-of-living/
