This document introduces a photography project titled "Charansparsh" which is a Hindi word meaning to touch someone's feet as a gesture of respect. The project contains photographs from places from the author's childhood in India that they visited with their father who has passed away. It is meant as a meditative project and rumination on childhood, time, and how revisiting places from one's past can inspire new creative works. The author hopes the photos will evoke a sense of place and time passed while paying homage to the author's father and childhood experiences in India.

1. Poetics of Witnessing
Spring 2012

2. “Charan” means feet, and “Sparsh” means touch; “Charansparsh” is a Hindi word,
and refers to a commonly practiced Indian ritual of bowing down to someone and
touching their feet. It is generally performed by touching the feet of one’s parents,
elders, teachers and mentors, and is a gesture of respect and gratitude. In addition
to the literal meaning of the phrase, “Charansparsh” also pays homage to dignity
and divinity of a person, by acknowledging the places his/her feet have traveled.,
thereby praising a journey of lessons learned and wisdom gained. It is an
expression that makes us stop and respect where we’ve been, who we are, and
where we’ll go. “Charansparsh” is reverence.
This visual project is a first-time, personal foray into some of the places of my
past. It is a small collection of photographs that I hope will evoke a sense of place,
and a sense of time gone by. It is a return to my childhood and my rendezvous with
memories of both pain and beauty. These are some of my personal reminders of
transience and the ephemeral nature of time; of a childhood spent in a country I
both loved and ran away from, and of moments spent with my father who passed
away when I was 9… This is “Charansparsh” for the places I’ve been, and for
perhaps where I will go.
My intent is not to create sentimental “memory project,” where the triumphs
and defeats of the past are simplified, trivialized and packaged by the “merchants of
nostalgia.” It is a meditative project, a rumination on how time and childhood are
both subjects and sources of inspiration. I wonder if we can all turn to the
landscapes of own childhoods to see how we might make use of that time and
space to generate new ideas, words and works of art.

3. I’m a singer, a writer, a music-maker., this is what I do. In my mind I’ve never
been a film-maker or a photographer; in fact I don’t think I’ve ever truly
attempted to capture an un-contrived moment on any kind of film. In March of
this year however, I was inspired to be brave, and to make an attempt at
nurturing a creative impulse of a different kind. I wanted to visit the same
places of authenticity, discovery and expression that I access with music and
performance, with photos. This inspiration was born out of my trip to India over
spring break; to my hometown Delhi, and especially to Jaipur. Two and a half
hours away from Delhi, in the desert state of Rajasthan, Jaipur was home away
from home for my family. Many, many weekends of my childhood were spent in
Jaipur, exploring old forts and palaces with my father, walking the abandoned
story-filled streets of former royal villages, riding rickshaws into the madness of
local bazaars- filled with different kinds of people, happy, sad, lonely…but all
colorful. I returned to both these cities with trepidation, a simple camera and
limited editing skills, but decided to capture some of the places I used to visit
with my father. Each of these places is deeply beautiful to me, but (in the words
of Crispin Sartwell) “also carry within them the poignancy of loss”…the loss of
my father, the loss of time gone by.
To quote phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard- “So like a forgotten fire, a
childhood can always flare up again within us.” I hope you enjoy this project.
Please view it in slideshow mode. Thank-you.