![]() But each of these layers can have deeper or multiple meanings, as well. Sooraj refuses to take his son along to Manikarnika Ghat, considered one of the holiest burning ghats, noting that he thinks his son’s teachers are good for nothing in creating that kind of assignment, telling his son he’ll take him to Assi Ghat, a centre for scholars, foreign students and tourists, associated more with festivals than funerals.ĭirector Gaurav Madan chooses to divide his narrative into chapters and focus on a different person or angle rather than a using a strictly straight-line narrative. The ghats are central to life, to the point that even Sooraj’s son receives a school assignment to write ten observations about them. As one photographer who has given up says, “Death photography doesn’t pay.”īarah X Barah (“Twelve by Twelve”) looks not only at Sooraj and his profession, but documents others who work there: the barber shaving people in the corner of an alleyway the burning ghats and those whose work relates to them, such as those who bring in the wood. And those who worked on the ghats who find themselves irrelevent must leave or find other work. But Varanasi is a place that is changing, and Sooraj stands to see himself become irrelevant as high quality digital cameras and ever improving cameras on smart phones make it easier and faster to take pictures of great quality for mourning families. And, indeed, when you are a death photographer – someone who takes final portraits of the dead before their cremation at Varanasi’s burning grounds – as is Sooraj (Gyanendra Tripathi), you would probably think that you’re doing a job that will always be needed. “’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes” wrote playwright Christopher Bullock in The Cobbler of Preston. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |