Samarth Jairaman

Desolation Row

The streets never cease to amaze me. Especially the streets around ancient temple complexes. Laid around the gigantic temples in concentric squares hundreds of years ago, the streets speak of an infrastructural intelligence obvious to the ancients but so obviously lost in modern times. The order has been taken over by ordered chaos. Overwhelming sights and sounds hit you even before you hit the streets. There is life everywhere, its almost as if you could hear it crunch under your feet. Each step is a hindrance to someone and an opportunity to someone else. The street teaches the ones willing to learn, the ones willing to observe. The streets never fail to amaze me.

The late afternoon sun beats down on the dusty Car Street, as preparations for the procession begin. On auspicious days, the street hosts processions for "Shiva" the Hindu God of Destruction. Workers arrive on trucks and bullock carts. Sacred trees are placed on the sides of the roads. Colourful Kolams are laid out. But today's party doesn't belong to Shiva. Freshly printed political banners and flags are strung up in the most inconvenient of spots, the inspection teams happy with their effort. The sound of beating drums drowns out even the blaring horns, a funeral procession passes by. Tourists and pilgrims move about hurriedly, unsure, on the non existent sidewalks. The cosmic dance continues on the street as I climb up the staircase to the seemingly 100 year old dingy room that I have rented.

With the sounds drowned out, you view the street with a different perspective. I sit beside a window, the life below playing out like a movie. The street is like a life sized chessboard, with spots reserved for some, while others move about like pawns, bishops and horses, cluttering the entire board. To be stationary under a shade is a luxury on this street, only the early ones get their spot. The flower seller arrives first, followed by the shoe doctor and the key makers. Their arrival is as precise as the sunrise, perhaps more precise for even the sun changes its schedules. Somehow, everything seems to follow a schedule now. The tourists, the pilgrims, the alms seekers, the junkie, the cow - the pattern never changes. What changes, is the street itself. As people go about their business, their stories lie scattered like stains through the streets, only to vanish as quickly as they appeared.

On the streets, there is neither order nor chaos, there are only perspectives.

"Desolation Row" attempts to capture the ever changing scenes of the Car Street in Thiruvannamalai over a 12 hour period. Political rallies and religious processions are everyday affairs here and almost every section of society rubs shoulders with each other on this unassumingly stylish street. The project has been shot from a balcony on the second floor of a building overlooking the street. The project title is inspired from the Bob Dylan classic of the same name.  

 

Samarth Jairaman