The ritualistic actions of the human race provide a fascinating insight into human nature. Our attempts to capture them in art will help in perpetuating the poignancy of the moments whose meaning is very short-lived and will not last beyond those moments. While traveling in Karnataka I came upon a fascinating sight of some people performing religious ceremonies for their dead kin at a holy site of the confluence of two rivers. From the vantage of a narrow bridge I could capture the whole scene on my camera- an extremely poignant moment indeed. I have come to like the picture very much.


Ashes

Then the drama continued
The words were spoken
From the guttural depths
Of a middleman’s throat
And washed by drops
Of sanctified water
The pursuit of silver
Went on in the waters
With sonorous words
Chasing multitudes of
Life-death shadows
The waters flowed silently
Over the rocks nurturing life
And its golden-brown ashes.



The photograph captures the whole activity of a group of people performing a religious ritual. My poem tries to capture the moment in a similar fashion, once again bringing to focus the essential similarities in the treatment of a subject in both poetry and photography.The only difference is that the poem has been able to capture the delicious irony of the man standing in knee-deep water trying to fish for the coins dropped by the relatives of the dead.The poem counterpoises the essentially tragic moments of the relatives paying homage to the dead with the worldly actions of one of the priests trying to gather coins from the running waters.In India we have the concept of smashana vyragyam.