All the posts on Panjim (capital of Goa) are consolidated at this link.
Bablo Naik House
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II
Rajadhyaksha Building
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II
Bharneys, central Panjim
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP
Institute Menezes Bragança building
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L
Home of heritage activist Percival Noronha, Fontainhas
5D Mark II, TS-E 24L II
Latin Quarter
5D Mark II, TS-E 17L
Wall, Latin Quarter
5D Mark II, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP
For people of my generation who grew up in India before the concrete jungle started being built, these pictures of Rajan evoke memories of a peaceful childhood. Yes, things were seemingly shabby and rundown, and no one had a lot of money. But there was little or no crime, little or no traffic, one could ride one’s bike through the main street in town where today one would hesitate to drive a car. Trees and butterflies abounded. One could actually breathe the air.
When the ocean is churned, both amrita (ambrosia) and kaal-koot (world-destroying poison) is thrown up; that is what globalization is doing, churning India. Rajan is doing a great job of recording the vanishing world, that presumably must vanish if the billion+ Indians are to find the opportunity to grow.
The last picture encapsulates everything the series symbolises for this viewer.
The artist has captured a powerful negative energy, verging on nihilism, reminiscent of the broad swath of art from early Giotto thorugh late Cezanne, Motherwell and beyond. The music of Stockhausen and Ligeti fight for attention in the viewer’s brain on repeated examination.
Frightening in its power and expressionism, the total absence of the red spectrum speaks loudly to our civilisation’s barely repressed blood lust and the need for revenge and craving for violence, reminding the observer of a broken window in a slum tenement and the crime wave which awaits outside. One can almost smell the physical and moral decay.
A very great work indeed.
The artist has informed me that he has turned down over $1.2 million for the original, for such crass commercialism would serve only to besmirch his principles.
Wholly admirable.