Pervez Rajan travels in search of unconventional spiritual enlightenment, he finds himself on the banks of the river Ojay in Kendul, West Bengal at the annual festival of the Bauls – Joy Dev Mela. The Bauls are mystic vagabonds who travel through Bengal begging a living with their songs. It’s a lonely life but every year they gather at the shrine of their founder to celebrate the anniversary of his death.
Hundreds of the most zany looking people Bhauls assemble once a year in this small provincial town. Some are dressed like Hindu Sadhus or Holy men – in red turbans and robes with sceptres and giant silver pendants. Others are more austere – shaven heads, coarse white cloth with only some shells and beads for decoration – or ragged shirts hardly visible under vast beards and rastafarian hair coils. The only thing that seems to be standard issue is a miniature wooden chopping board for cutting marijuana and a pipe for smoking it.
To the full moon night ektara the one string instrument of the Bhauls reverberates with an eccentric twang
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Pervez Rajan plays the didgeridoo, is part of a post-rock band, designs stuff, bikes and draws on the back of cigarette cartons.
Shipra Chauhan
Lovely, haunting images!
I have gotten introduced to such incredible photographers through this collaboration- I am beginning to feel like an ardent fan:)
Bravo!
Jul 27, 2009 @ 9:21 am
Priyanka Joseph
Beautiful, beautiful work, and so unselfish. You don’t show us what you want us to see- instead you capture scenes with an as-is honesty. I am thankful you bring back images of places that right now I can only dream of visiting.
Jul 28, 2009 @ 8:55 am
Maithili
lovely work. very unpredictable images.
Jul 28, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
Vatsala
I feel I would like to see a tighter edit of this version. Some of the images here seem repetitive to me. Also, I’d like to know if the blurb comes from the photographer or the editor ?
Jul 30, 2009 @ 1:52 am
pervez
The editors are responsible entirely for the post production enhancements (vague vignettes & unbridled sharpening), the selection of images and the blurb posted underneath as a ‘profile’.
A certain North Indian photographer working with blindboys was mistakenly (in retrospect) given the liberty and onus of handling the editing process.
As Roger Waters puts it, in his ‘Amused to Death’ album, “Give any one species too much rope, and they’ll fuck it up”….
Do visit link below to see original images and notes made in Jan 2007. It is not a tighter selection though.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=17033&id=607062265&l=1babb46885
Jul 31, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
Shipra Chauhan
Pervez,
I just hopped on to the facebook album.
And may I say the originals look so much better! More real.
Over-zealousness with post processing has become such an unfortunate trend.
However, I still maintain that your subject still shines through here.
Aug 05, 2009 @ 5:10 am
Bishan Samaddar
Dear Blindboys and Pervez:
Although the overall write-up talks about River Ojoy and Kenduli Mela, this particular photograph is obviously shot in Calcutta as is evident from the Howrah Bridge. I think it is important to make such distinctions, because this website is for an international audience, and such misinformation can be misleading.
Nice photos though.
Best,
Bishan.
Nov 02, 2009 @ 5:13 am