Banaras – Poetry in Motion
Photojournalism | September 27, 2007 | Share[flashvideo width="360" height="270" filename=videos/Banaras.flv /]
When the Day lied “I don’t love the night…”
….GENESIS…it all began…
The mist rises from the sleeping river
As the sun sprouts from her arms
Throwing himself on the ‘falling’ night
His majestic shades overwhelm the ‘Sky Gods’
Seated on their thrones, they declare…
“Welcome Oh! Day…let this creation be awake!”
And slowly the ghats1 come alive…
The pigeons whirl in the ‘September’ sky
(Dyed in striking tones of orange, blue, white & light yellow)
The smoke ascends from the holy flames…
Narrating tales of incomplete lives, faint memories & dry tears
The old temples ‘crowning’ the ghats talk of faith…
Faith in the serenity of the divine river
Faith in every diya2 floating on her naked back
(Every diya in its flickering flame carries…
Countless prayers, tiny fantasies, ‘mute’ confessions)
My boat rows past many unfamiliar faces
Yet a certain familiarity is sketched on them…
Familiarity of an escaping life…
As my thoughts sink in the rising day
The majhi3 poses a queer question to me…
“Can the Day ever fall in love with the Night?”
(His voice slowly elapsed in to the fleeting silence
I can’t answer his question…
Many missing links it has!
And many questions are tied to this lone question…
But I have to give a reply…)
I draw a smile on my face (my subtle reply)
But the question is not leaving me…
(My heart whispers to me…
“Can water ever fall in love with Fire?
Can Death fall in love with Life?”)
I turn towards the majhi (to ask him something)
But before my words leave my lips…
The majhi softly hum’s (The glint in his eyes was blinding me)
“The night dances when the day kisses on her head…
And dissolves into her warm breaths…
And the Day sings when the Night hugs him
And flees into his gentle shadow…
They both love each other…
A love as magnificent as this creation
A love as infinite as the cosmos
A love as selfless as a tiny silkworm
A love as pure as the thoughts of a newborn
But a love as painful as sore memories
A love as condemned as Truth
A love as helpless as blood oozing from an innocent’s body
And a love as forgotten as the One who created us all!
But as some say…
‘Time leaves its footprints behind…’
And so has their love left its imprints on the moments…
Rattling between the (Falling/Rising) Night and the (Rising/Falling) Day
Dawn and Dusk-
The imprints of a love that still thrives amidst these old ghats
And this where their journey starts again…
Genesis…it all began…”
(His words again submerged into the silence…
But my thoughts kept flowing…
Like the ‘sleeping’ water of the divine river)
Chandan Gomes
(9 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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the pictures are amazing !!!
clearly banaras is a mystical land..
enchanting…you have captured benaras in its element. Truely poetry in motion.
Its truly magnificent! He has captured the magic and the aura of this holy city in his lens!!
Splendid!!!