02/02/2025
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Death in the family
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Death is the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion to life. Our birth is a committal to a life sentence. It’s true that we will never know when we’ll die, or how, but we know that it is the ultimate eventuality. Death can also be viewed as a yardstick by which we measure the values and purpose of our lives. Culturally, the perceptions, meanings, and sanctioned activities constructed around death define our individual trajectories of interaction with death.
An unlikely blend of emotions arose upon hearing of the death of my uncle back in 2013. He was in a paralytic state for more than a year, slowly withering away, unable to perform even the most basic human task but on the other hand he left behind his wife and two unmarried daughters which in the conventional Indian society meant that he died unfulfilled. So, being there in the midst of all that I was overwhelmed by the emotions that surrounded me yet somehow felt disconnected. Tears didn’t come to me, unlike his daughter who was understandably devastated having overlooked his medications for more than a year. I could not feel any other emotions either, since I have always been disturbed by death, particularly on the death of my grandmother when I was 11.
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Photography has been an interface that allows not only reinterpretation but also in this particular case, reconciliation and contemplation. Thus, photographs were to preserve and reconcile with those final moments of our humility in the presence of death, and the following event of Sraddho (wake).
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This is more of an incomplete series, yet an intimate one.
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Photo-essay by
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