It’s been a long break.  I have been around and looking in but things have been moving at a hectic pace.  Since the last post, I’ve had a solo exhibition, a holiday, a finished SoFoBoMo project, rounds of farewell parties for friends and for us as we move next month to Colombo. I’m back and will be posting regularly again.

Yesterday we went to Dhamrai to watch the Jaganath Rath Yatra.   It is 20km from Dhaka yet it took us two and half hours to get there.  Unfortunately, we were not able to stay to watch the event as I had a dinner engagement.  But we did get to see the Rath (chariot) and the crowds had started coming in and was building up as we were leaving.

I was told that eventually there were huge numbers and no place to move.  People after filling the street were lining  terraces, balconies and roofs of the buildings along the route too.  In a way it was better that we left when we did as else we’d never have made it back home in time.

There was what seemed like a lot of  police bandobast when we first got there but in all made sense when were heading back and after seeing the pics from last year here.

There are stories and stories built around this event and once such is that it rains on this day every year – tears shed by Madhavi returning to her in-laws home and it did this year too!  You wouldn’t have believed it if you’d felt the heat and seen the sunny skies in the morning.  It was nice and slushy when we got there but the puddles dried up quickly in the heat.

Dhamrai is famous for it’s temples, old houses and bronze sculptures, made using a rare process – the lost wax casting technique.  It also has an annual Rath Yatra, a procession in which a chariot takes Lord Jaganath (Krishna), his brother Balaram and his sister Shubhadra to visit his aunt who lived a distance of 2km away.

The chariot is pulled by devotees as it is considered to be very auspicious.   There are huge crowds and many brave these to get closer and at least touch one of the ropes that are pulling the chariot if not actually taking a turn at pulling it themselves. In earlier years, people would arrive a few days before and there would be a fair to keep them busy. This year there were just a few and they were waiting inside the temple for the event to start and some had knotted hair and dreadlocks!

Originally there was a 6 storied wooden chariot to take the deities on this journey but this was burnt down in 1971.  It was replaced by another smaller two storied chariot soon after.  While this one is not as elaborate the crowds still gather in unbelievable numbers to be a part of this occasion.

And if you didn’t know, the word juggernaut is derived from the name of this event. In the past, the crowds pulling the chariot and the devotees trying to reach out and volunteer to pull the chariot led to some accidentally falling under the wheels and being crushed to death. Once the wheels were in motion and these 6 storied high heavy wooden chariots pulled by hundreds of people it was difficult to stop them in time. Sometimes these events resulted in stampedes which again were difficult to stop or control. This led the British to coin the word juggernaut, an unstoppable force.

More from wikipedia about the Rath Yatra and on the word juggernaut.   And you can read more about the Dhamrai event and see the pictures of the huge crowds here.    And you can see a selection of about 30 from the 400(!) I clicked on flickr.

9 heads on one body, an impossibility!

_________________________________________________________________

Check out many more interpretations at

(drypoint photos – cleaned plate, inked plate, first proof on the press, first proof)

April 2nd, 2009 – I’m looking at working on a few plates during the two month printmaking course, at UODA, with Shahid Kabir. This piece is a drypoint and is to keep me busy while waiting for some zinc plates to arrive from the old part of the city.  The reference for this drypoint is the same as that used for the painting in the post below. Like the Tea Lady I can just see the same reference inspiring me for several more pieces.

I’ve signed up for two other projects.  One is “31 Days to Build a better Blog” being run by Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger, in April.  The name says it all!  You can read more about it here and sign up in case you are interested.

And the second, one that I wanted to participate in last year but didn’t as I was partly too chicken and partly too busy, is SoFoBoMo

Short for Solo Photo Book Month – a group event where a bunch of photographers make solo photo books, in 31 days, at more or less the same time.

This time I intend to have a book of my own.  I’m scheduling it for mid-May so that I can give the first project the time it deserves.

Update : April 7, 2009 -  Worked on the plate over the weekend and took another proof today.  I’ll be learning a new process tomorrow involving adding iron oxide to get some dark areas for this piece.

Update : April 9, 2009 – Yesterday’s printmaking session was very exciting with an introduction to Chine-collé and using iron oxide dust to create saturated colours in the print.  The lines on the plate were reworked by Shahid Kabir in order to deepen them to retain more ink (as with the addition of the iron oxide dust some areas of the plate would be raised).

The first of the images was a test run for the Chine-collé technique and we used a new plate that i’ve just started work on.  You can see the brown paper the plate was printed on and the white of the cartridge paper that it was bonded onto using the press   The second is an image of a print of the old plate using both the chine-colle and the iron oxide dust technique.  Here the brown paper has been used again but on handmade off-white paper.   And in the last one, you can see the iron oxide deposits on the plate which gave the nice black colour and depth in the print.

Everytime I add to a painting I subtract something from what was before.  Not being in the stage where i can bring it back keeps me worrying about the next session   I’m hoping it will get easier sometime soon. I found that working digitally has the key advantages of undo levels and  layers which allow me to overcome the addition/subtraction problem but other perceived problems prevent me from using it for more than studies.

A piece that I’m currently working on. Red – wip, 12″ X 12″ oil on canvas.

_________________________________________________________________

Check out many more interpretations on

sketch book, cartridge paper, 18″ X 12″

warm up sketch. we had two one hour power cuts and so there was a problem with lighting but we managed to get some work done.

brown paper, 30″ X 48″

i’m just happy to be back at it again