sankar sridhar

The room is dark and cold. The only break in the sedate shade of concrete comes from the glint of iron stakes and chains. For its inhabitants, freedom means hauling tourists up a historic fort. Chapatis and sugarcane, duly rationed, sates their hunger. It seems a miracle that these giants tolerate these conditions, but what is truly miraculous is that bonds bloom even in this bondage.

The Rabari are a community of pastoral nomads who have for centuries followed traditional migration routes across western India (Rajasthan and Gujarat) and large swaths of land that today lie in Pakistan. As nomads, they have forever battled odds ranging from weather and wild animals to dacoits and cattle rustlers. Today, though, they face an adversary they know they cannot stop: change. Unlike many other such communities though, the rabari have been open to change, and have over time adopted newer ways to continue being what they are: wanderers. This includes transporting their livestock to pasture using trucks, and settling down. With education a priority for the youth, the community waits at the threshold of joining the mainstream. This series is a study of their traditional, and fast disappearing, way of life.

The Yamuna is a river revered in legend as the provider of immortality. Ironically, this river dies in Delhi, choked by effluents, untreated industrial and household waste, and raw sewage. And yet, as if serving her purpose on earth even in her afterlife, the river cradles faith, ritual and millions of migratory birds every winter. As the mists of winter shroud the darkness of human indifference, the waters, the air and the river banks become a theatre of rapturous celebration cleansed of filth. This series is an ode to surreality of the river. It is an attempt to capture the mundanity of the everyday in stark contrast to the poetry the winged visitors etch in their flight paths