Our stories and performances reveal us in ways words might not be able to. India is going though what is probably the largest demographic shift in the history of humanity. Millions move from villages to cities carrying within their selves, their mythologies, histories and ways of looking. An increase in earning and wealth has created new confidences in peoples once poor, repressed or unsure. Particularities long suppressed due to poverty, foreign rule or suffering have begun to flow again. Identities, religious and cultural, once overwhelmed and displaced are being freed and what cannot be written or spoken about is expressed through various forms of storytelling. As the saying goes, “History flows in our blood and is not written in our books”. For many in once “remote” areas of India, regional talent shows and the Internet have become stages for the sharing of performance and stories. These are photographs of a semi rural troupe of performers at a “talent show” in a small Indian city, the Bir Khalsa group.
Do look at the extended work on the Tasveer journal and please feel free to leave comments.
 


















 




 
"Independence had come to India like a kind of revolution. Now there were many revolutions within that revolution. . . . All over India scores of particularities that had been frozen by foreign rule, or by poverty or lack of opportunity or abjectness had begun to flow again." 

Sir V.S. Naipaul "India: A Million Mutinies Now"


Thank you

Mr. Nirmal Singh,  Mr. Tananjeet Singh all all other members of the Bir Khalsa group for your kind co-operation and performances.

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul for his magnificent book "India: A Million Mutinies Now" which has in part inspired the text, title and photography of this work. For his humility, perseverance and dedication. For what some of his literature has given to me.

Mr. Shantulan Mishra for coordinating and managing the shoot most effectively.

Dr. Ashok Krishnan for his book recommendations and his conversation