Shrine to the late founder of Vedhshala


A mourning period indicating the imminent end of our trip has officially commenced.  Not only am I not ready to leave the people and this excitement of travel, I am not ready to embrace ‘life as normal’ upon my return. Being here has allowed optimism to take seed; Suraj and I have been living in the realm of possibility.  Unhindered by the requirements of the daily grind, pipe dreams feel tangible, less wispy than the smoky haze they’re born of.  The thought of losing this potential feels vaguely like claustrophobia – I need to hold on to the intoxication of freedom.

I have to remind myself that the promise of these weeks is not merely temporary.  We’ve both pushed life in directions that will continue after our return to the US.  And, as sweet Serendipity (yes, she’s still at it!) would have it, my current artistic interests happen to coincide with a project that Suraj started this trip - one example of an endeavor that will cross the oceans with us. 

I’ve been ruminating on the theme of cultural heritage for months, and it has become an inherent undercurrent in my observations here.  Traditions are mingling with globalization to slowly blur the lines of culture that currently remain intact. Families are moving away from home, away from the areas that their forefathers have inhabited for generations.  Ways of life are supplanted by the process of modernization – potters must find new occupations as red and green plastic wares becomes ubiquitous, traditional storytellers have been subverted by televised versions of the Ramayana.  Homeland, culture and language are traded in for the cosmopolitan ‘promise’ of steady work as millions migrate from country to city. 

Add to this the failings of the infrastructure –families who are accustomed to using banana leaf plates have traded them for styro-foam, but continue to discard them haphazardly. Funding that could be designated for trash collection systems ends up in politicians’ pockets (fodder for another blog post), and thus heaps of trash pepper the city- and jungle-scapes.  Obesity is on the rise as an emerging middle class that was raised living from one meal to the next, now has the means to eat unlimited rotis or purchase Oreos, but public health officials have yet to address this issue.

I’ve had several ideas about how to engage with/document this transition (all involve a return trip for a longer period of time and extensive research beforehand), but one opportunity fell into my lap.  Suraj has a strong connection to Nakshatra Vedshala – an observatory established by the late Acharya Shri Pt. Chakradhar Joshi (a scholar in
Astronomy and Astrology) in 1946.

The observatory is well equipped with two telescopes, hundreds of books to support research in astronomy, and about 3000 manuscripts from 1677 AD onwards that have been collected from various parts of the country.  Today, the Joshi family continues to live on the Vedshala grounds, and they receive thousands of visitors annually who come to study, seek spiritual guidance, or sometimes simply receive a meal (they have a policy to feed anyone who comes by). 


A pile of the 2,000 year old ayurvedic diagnostic texts - each is less than 1.5 inches wide and 14 inches long.

In addition the their extensive library, the family has saved thousands of photos (dating back almost 100 years), and has also acquired a series of ancient ayurvedic documents, inscribed on small wooden panels, that date back 2,000 years.  Unfortunately, they lack the funds, time, and instruments required to do much beyond continue storing them as well as they can (wrapped in plastic bags, and stored in a metal filing cabinet).

Armed with a scanner and my trusted laptop, we’ve spent the past three days gleaning through shopping bags and photo albums full of memories, to select 500 are now digitized for posterity.  We interviewed family members to date and identify the photos.  We also scanned about 250 of the wooden pages, in the hopes that an academic specializing in Telugu (a south Indian language) can translate what is written. We’re now in the process of organizing them and uploading to Facebook, but I’m planning to construct a website for them this summer. 

I have been photographing our whole process, and used it as an excuse to take unlimited shots of everyday life, special events and art forms that are particular to Gharwal. I hope to use these images as the framework for a digital story or short documentary that helps the family to fund renovation of the observatory library, invest in appropriate methods of document storage, and finance the scanning, digitization, and translation of the remaining Ayurvedic documents.  In this small way, I am helping to preserve this cultural heritage and ensure that it will be passed on to future generations.



Image from a village fair in Gharwal.