Category: Art & Culture

Art & Culture, Mountains

Temples of busy bee valleys…

Temples of Uttarakhand

Temples, those that have been wizened by the meanders of civilization since medieval times, are more often than not draped in a bemused solemnity… been there, seen that… the tomes of religion remain the same, but their interpretations are forever in a state of flux… the monuments lie somewhere in the middle… tangible testimonies of …

Art & Culture, Mountains

Lakhudiyar and the languid…

Prehistory, one feels at times, deserves to be left alone… for we aren’t doing much with it, except maybe for emojis… there’s no cultures to revere or ancestries to venerate, and consequently, no opinions to subjugate… hardly any narratives soaked in drama… just a clutch of unembellished facts aloof to sensational revelations or discoveries… content …

Art & Culture, Rural

Holipura and its melancholic heritage…

Holipura village, Uttar Pradesh, India

Holipura Heritage Village, a small (and save for the glossy paint, largely non-descript) board on the road from Agra to Bah announces a potential excursion to those meandering in the ravines of Chambal… that ‘tis a short detour swings the decision in its favour as one turns the car down a narrow bumpy road for …

Art & Culture, Mountains

Chortens and their chores…

Chortens are one of those religious structures that are universally revered, a harbinger of constructive contemplation – one that leads towards inner peace through reminiscent journeys – these trapezoids stacked over one another and topped with a crown are but Buddha posing himself they say… a structural representation of different stages of his mortal journey… …

Art & Culture, History

Temple trudges…

Gurrjar Dev Temple, Dwarahat, Uttarakhand, India

If one were to look at the innate motivations that pique one’s curiosity about temple ruins – somewhere in the middle of the animal instinct of seeking shelter from the elements and the intellectual cycle of constructing theories from the deconstructed – it’d be the simple appeal of geometry, large cuboid appearances staring from plinths …

Art & Culture, History, Mountains

On royal animists… Sun Temple, Katarmal

Katarmal Sun Temple, Almora, Uttarakhand, India

A temple is a kernel around which settlements, permanent or temporary, are spun… across history and religions, they have laid the ground rules for civilizations, defined the contours of culture and cradled the arts… one might say it comes at a price though… an opacity of belief and conviction beyond which societies offer little incentive …

Art & Culture, Mountains

on water of the woods…

Naula, traditional water system, Uttarakhand, India

the way we mistreat water more or less defines the way we mistreat the gods, cleaving away the elements to deprive divinity of its roots and imprisoning it in a seclusion that can leave even the most devout stymied at times… yet one feels that this thought is more of an urban construct, as a …

Art & Culture, Mountains

on dilemmas of divinity — the prayer flag

prayer flag enroute Stok Kangri peak (~6,100 mts), Jammu & Kashmir, India

surprisingly ubiquitous — that’d be how one could sum up the modern day prayer flag, an instrument of purification turned into a static, decorative artefact by the forces of internet and the travel it has induced over the past couple of decades… a codification of beliefs residing in animism mass retailing on Alibaba for half …