Evening

Coming back from a shoot in Nalbari, Assam. Photograph taken while crossing the bridge on the Bramhaputra

Electric Cool

Durga puja madness in Assam courtesy the magicians/electricians from Chandannagore, West Bengal

Relief camps

Two photographs taken at the relief camp in Udalguri district of Assam. From a distance , this boy and the young woman was observing us. Observing what we were trying to do with the camera. The condition of the relief camps are really bad. Inadequate food, little water. In these temporary relief camps with basic facilities ( in absolute discomfort) the women and the children are still waiting for the violence to end.

Death

Mob violence/communal violence/rioting is something that we often read about. When we witness that madness it's something that beats all imagination. It's horrifying, nauseating . People killing people is not the best thing to watch. Assam witnessed the worst form of communal violence just few days back. At least 40 people were killed in the districts of Udalguri, Darrang and Baksa. No one knows what sparked off this violence. I was there in Udalguri and there were many versions doing the rounds. No one knew what was the reason for organised hatred among thousands of people and what led them to hack each other to death in these districts. I have read many times, many accounts of the India-Pakistan partition riots ( probably the worst in history) on both sides of the border, in Punjab and in Bengal. I have read stories by Manto, by Manik Bandopadhyay, by Khuswant Singh. I have also read about the infamous Nellie massacre that took place in Assam in 1983 when more than 2,000 people were killed in one night of communal frenzy. But nothing comes close to what you witness. On assignment in Assam's Udalguri district, these are photographs that captured the hatred for me. An assignment that has also put questions in my mind about the (ir)responsibility of television. The first photograph is of a pair of black sandals in a pool of blood. I was told that it belonged to a man from another community who was hacked to death. His body was dragged away. Rest, no one knows.