What is devotion?

Ibaadat is devotion. Devotion is not mere piety. It is belief in something outside oneself and also a deep bonding with the Self.

Seeing it in places of worship is only one aspect. The most ordinary things in life are often imbued with a subsuming of oneself into another – be it Nature, be it work, be it fellow human beings, be it an idea.

And you feel this most strongly as you traverse through various parts of other people’s lives and peel the layers. I do not call myself a tourist, but a traveller. And I know that my true medium is words. This time I thought of sharing some pictures taken during my sojourn through some parts of India. I cannot desist from the ‘posing near a haveli’ or ‘letting the wind tousle my hair on a mountain range’ shots. But there have been times I have tried to capture the candid. Some are clichés, but they are so irresistible.

I decided to take a specific subject and seek pictorial answers for this gallery. Each photograph has a larger story that shall remain unsaid. For, a journey does not have a beginning or an end.

It is also devotion – an ongoing process where those travelling will still look back to where they belong and say, “Hum bulbuley hai iski, yeh gulsitaan hamara….”

Kaisa desh hai mera?

This and the pictures have already appeared on Chowk. I felt like reproducing these...will upload three pictures at a time and what they mean to me in a new post, perhaps everyday...