Young model Visha


Raj and I at Lover's Point

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2003-06-10 - Mandi - Pandoh Dam - Mandi (Day 56)

Raj, one of the guys I met in the local internet café, shows up at my hotel and offers to take me to a local photographer's gallery about 5 km north of town which is a chronicle of life around Himachal Pradesh. We head up and I again find that I have so much to learn about photography looking at a gallery of photographs from the 20-year career of the local photographer. His was simply lovely work and a highly recommended stop if you are in Mandi.

On the way back into Mandi, we pass a water tank off the main road which unfortunately was probably serving as a holding tank for the local village's household water use but which a family was washing their clothes and bathing in. Raj and I walk down and find the group to be a bunch of fun with one little 11 year-old being a total ham for the camera and looking for all the world like a little model. The older Indian girls and young women are so conservative and shy that photographing them is not very fun as they just hide from the camera or put on a stone face. The kids though, without the shyness are incredible hams and in this little girl, Visha's case, we had a blast with Raj directing our little model and donating his bandanna and my sunglasses for her props while Mom and Dad looked on and laughed at her antics.

Raj and I grab a bit to eat and then he takes me up to his favorite spot over the artificial lake formed by Pandoh Dam. We sit looking over the lake and chatting mostly about Raj's unrequited love and I also find this spot is called "Lover's Point" - obviously this trip is going to be a little dull when I end up at "Lover's Point" with a dude.

To round it out Raj takes me on a tour of some of the more famous temples in the area which is literally covered with temples having more then 80 in the area. I am a little stunned and disturbed by the artwork in the Syamakali Temple which depicts Kali as cutting her own head off and feeding the spurting blood to her own severed head and her disciples as well as the pictures of her killing human enemies and sporting strings of skulls as a necklace. The much more restrained Triloknath and Panjvaktra temples down by the river are much more sedate. However, I livened things up by strolling into the shantytown next to the temple where people's homes were simple tents or cardboard boxes. I was overrun in literally seconds by a throng of children who saw the camera and we all shouting to get their picture taken. Even after shooting 40 shots of the kids, I had to push my way through the dirty crowd with the kids still pulling on my clothing. Raj had stayed out of the fray watching my progress through the throng from the road, which unfortunately was probably a lot better idea.

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