[Please see the amazing pictures in full screen]
The Ratha Yatra, or Chariot Festival, is a vibrant Hindu celebration honouring Lord Jagannath, held annually in Puri, Odisha, and prominently observed in Kolkata, West Bengal.
It marks the deities’ journey from the Jagannath Temple to the Gundicha Temple. In Kolkata, the festival is celebrated with grand processions and elaborate rituals, attracting large crowds.
Children show great enthusiasm by pulling smaller chariots, mirroring the main event. This activity fosters joy, community spirit, and cultural pride among the younger generation.
Siddhartha’s journey has by no means been smooth or easy, he is a common man with a routine job, who has struggled in his domestic life. What had begun as only the documentation of his avid travelling and wander lust, underwent many twists of life and fate to become the apex of street genre it is today. Diagnosed with severe eyesight issues and suspected eye cancer, almost put an end to his passion for photography leaving him physically and mentally broken, with no clear path to move ahead, this deep thinking and sensitive man did not stop embracing life with whatever little he had. Being forbidden to get out in bright sun, he continued to take pictures from within his room and in the evening. He fell in love with the old charms of the city anew. He fell in love with something so many of us take for granted, his eyesight.
