Portfolio - Landscape

Seobagh Village, Kullu, H.P., India, July 1998
The villages’ very own waterfall cascades to draw many people from nearby villages during the summer months, especially the children, who must chill out here after the tedium of the school.

Damodra Village, Jaiselmer, Rajasthan, India, October, 1997
Shying away from the camera, this young woman was bold enough to demand money for the picture.

Rangri Village, Kullu, H.P., India, July, 1998
Framed in a ‘made-to-order-door’, this little girl admiringly looks on at her father working in the paddy fields.

Nariangarh, Haryana, India, November, 1992
Squatting on the roadside, grief overcomes this old woman looking at her son, dead in a hit and run accident.

Damro Village, Upper Siang, Arunachal Pradesh. December, 1994
A Wills Navy Cut cigarette was enough exotic pleasure for this village chief (known as a gaon-bura) to permit camping in the vicinity of his village. Grand daughter Pema looks on inquisitively.

Namgiya Village, near Tibet border, Kinnaur, H.P. September 1992
Having left school three years ago for helping mother in the fields, this hard working Kinnauri girl of twelve gazes thoughtfully at the stranger from another world—a world she may not see ever.

Nurbolingka Monastry, Sidhpur, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. May, 1999
The scripture room of the monastry exudes an ethereal charm. Drowned in vibrant colours and total silence, every shade in the chamber lingers on in timelessness.

Buddhist Monastry, Mcleodganj (Dharamsala) District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. May, 1999
Mcleodganj, the little Lahasa in India, is the second home of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. . As the monks prepare for the daily prayers, hundreds of lamps are lit.

District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh May 1999
An expert hand at winnowing wheat, a mother-in-law chats with her bahu (daughter-in-law).
Both are busy doing something that has been an intrinsic culture of every household.

Village Chatwal, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. June, 1999
Mesmerized by the camera, Sanju, a fifth grader, looks on while Sonia, shy as a girl can be, takes position behind her elder brother. It is not every day they come across strangers and when they do, it is an occasion.

Village Chatwal, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. June, 1999
Walking four kilometers to school and back in the month of May is always a dreary job. Sonia, bleary eyed from sleep, wakes up in the morning and sadly contemplates the ordeal. More sadly, we know nothing about the pain and suffering written on her wall.

Barabanghal village, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
From the safety of his father’s arm-crook, this little boy of Barabanghal village was wide-eyed looking at this stranger (me) wielding a camera. I was of course looking for a picture. My eyes saw what was in front of me—a father and son standing under a tree in a remote Himachal village. However, art sees things differently...like this protection-seeking clutch of the coatlapel and stories hidden in the creases and folds.

Chamukha Temple, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. May, 1999
Like little girls all over the world, Shalu, daughter of the temple priest and her best friend Kunika, after-school hours are the most precious. Fleeting, hand in hand with time, they play a new game they have learned in school. Granny takes a siesta in the background.

Chichum village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P.May, 2000
With a Reebok cap on his head and an impregnable world of emotions trapped in his heart, a young boy of this village confronts the camera with some quaint defiance. Maybe we’ll never know his story. What we do know is that the roads leading out of or in to Spiti are dusty and with many hurdles. Maybe there’s a dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer, shackled by red tape. Maybe there’s some mature anger focusing through the eye…

Ki Gompa, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Felicitating a politician from New Delhi, a visiting dance troupe from neighboring Kinnaur, in all their silver and lazurite finery, end their rehearsal and head for the podium. With troupes from different valleys, soon colorful gaiety sways to soaring notes from rustic flutes and drums.