Photo Essay - Glimpses of Guna

Guna exists as a proverbial blip on the map of Central India; a sleepy town which has evolved, almost reluctantly, with the changing times, while still keeping most of its archaic atmosphere intact. It is the place which defined my imagination of the "town" while I was growing up, barely an hour away, in NFL Vijaipur, whose story I will record some other day. As one navigates through the various lanes, by-lanes, alleys, alleyways, roads, routes, paths and pathways of this small town, one is flooded with memories - the hotel where once a birthday was celebrated with all the friends, the favorite ice cream parlor which serves cheap yet delicious variety of, well, ice creams, the shop for books, the shop for watches, the shop for clothes, the family jeweler and so on and so forth until one wonders how far has one traveled and whether one was really that far away?   

A Timeless Tombstone - A Visit to the Taj Mahal

For Guruji Rabindranath Tagore, the Taj Mahal was a "teardrop on the cheek of time". However, a question that kept swirling in my mind as I went around the architectural wonder was "whose teardrops?" Were they the teardrops of a heartbroken king, accumulated over a decade, that resulted in this poetry in marble, or was it the teardrops of those thousands of labourers who worked to build this monument of their slavery? The Mughals and Marx frequently clashed in my mindscape as I inspected the hauntingly beautiful landscape as a part of the ordinary multitude.

It has been more than 5 years since I came to Delhi. However, circumstances had conspired so far to keep me from visiting this wonder of wonders which stands at a distance of only 3.5 hours from the capital. So, when I had to go to Vijaipur (my hometown) via bus because of the lack of train reservation, I made the most of the opportunity.

Here are some pictures from the visit.

P.S: What does it say about the fate of love in our times when all we care about is a 20 rupee ticket in the beginning and an ice-cream at the end? Where is the time for things such as reflection, commitment and poetry amid wailing children and scowling parents? :)