My artist friends call me an ‘explorer at heart’ and many are surprised by my profession. The former is because I have always stayed in Patna post completing my graduation from College of Arts & Crafts, Patna. My workplace is also in Patna – a hospital, Indira Gandhi MS. I believe ‘lens is mightier than a pen’ where the world believes ‘pen is mightier than a sword’. I have ‘painted’ my artistic work for last two decades through my camera. I have covered the lengths and breadths of Bihar, capturing the colourful cultural footprints of the place, not letting anything escape my attention. My work includes- mega festival of Ch hath, iconic cattle fair famous as Sonepur Mela, across the Ganges, the mokshaattaining Pitrapaksha Mela, Kalachakra Festival of Bodh Gaya. I see and try to show it all whether its mundane or sacred, religious or secular.
In Tarumitra, the Khoj Bihar project, I dug out five square pits and then in each of them I will layed out, vertically, elongated panels in triplets, all lit up from the inside. The idea was to display my work ‘underground’ which has come from the Sonepur Mela, also visited by my artist friends here in Tarumitra. When I looked at the ‘ horse market’, it hit me that just like in the fair, I want my work to be connected to the earth. I believe that probably no photography artist has ever attempted this. I want my viewers to come down-to-earth, so to speak, to observe my work, and I, in the process also appreciate the beauty in the earthiness of our being.
