A Series of Photographs
A river is a natural watercourse and its energetic flow tells about its lively character. One cannot imagine a river without its flow, its life lies in its flow, if it is not flowing means its dead. Rivers have been used as a source of water, for food, for transport, as a defensive measure, as a source of hydropower to drive machinery, for bathing, and as a means of disposing of waste.
Rivers
have been used for navigation for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of
navigation is found in the Indus Valley Civilization, which existed in
northwestern Pakistan around 3300 BC. Riverine navigation is still used
extensively on most major rivers of the world like the Amazon, the Ganges, the
Nile, the Mississippi, and the Indus. This one was the most important reason
for embellishment of these ancient civilizations. These civilizations
illuminated at bank of rivers and rivers have seen their birth, growth and
termination. And today situation is converted onto river itself as many major
rivers are at the stage of termination.
This
situation of obsolescence of a river is something, B. Ajay Sharma wants to
convey through his recent series of photography. Hailing from a religious place
‘Deoghar’ which is the place of mountains and rainy rivers but Today Rivers are
replaced by sand congeries. After Deoghar, he graduated from another religious
place, Varanasi, which itself situated at the bank of ‘Ganga’ river. So, it’s
obvious of coming out of that free flowing image of river which he has seen,
observed and lived with his childhood days. But that flowing image of river has
much struggled with its contemporary situation/image. This conflict of
contradictory images, one is lively and energetic and the other is lifeless and
dried away; has given Ajay the title of this series of photographs,‘Concrete
memories of serous’.
These
places; where Ajay lived, brought up and educated, the religious milieu of them
also touched his artistic nerve. So, he has connected this conflicted image of
river with Indian mythological narrations as well. As according to Hindu
mythology the river ‘Ganges’ is an epitome of ‘purification’ which leads
‘salvation’, an ultimate goal of human life. A story of birth of Ganges lies in
the religious austerity of king ‘Bhagiratha’ who evocated for ‘descent of
Ganges’ onto earth for felicity of creatures. But today this Ganges of
Bhagiratha seems struggling for its own survival and praying for her go back
from earth.
Similarly,
one of important Indian textual source ‘Mahabharata’ contains a scene narrating
story of Draupadi, The Kouravas and the evincible faith of Draupadi on lord
Krishna. When Kauravas tried to ‘Cheer Harana’ of Draupadi in middle of their
court, Draupadi prayed to Lord Krishna to help her and Draupadi’s sari became
long enough to end. This heard and seen memory of pictures recalled again in
form of these photographs, where Ajay imagine the river at place of Draupadi,
who is praying for help. And we all must know, today no Lord Krishna will come
to save her; we all human beings will have to play the role of Lord Krishna,
but not to save only the lives of river but the lives of ourselves. Otherwise
the increasing materialism and urbanism will rape our rivers.
Here
the religious has connected to realistic, mythological has translated into
materialistic, and the memory has converted into present harsh truth. So, the
past, present and future all connected at one place arising internal dialects
and at a single moment giving solution to it. The symbolic representations of
the scenes, is something Ajay enjoyed photographing and his characters are the
lone individuals having a silent dialogue with their viewers by each click of
photograph!!
