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
.JPG)
.JPG)
