We had spent the whole afternoon taking candid street pictures & portraits of saints & sadhus along the holy river Ganges. The river runs through the city of Kolkata & has a whole culture & people developed around the banks. We were out taking street pictures in Nimtola, the burning ghats of Kolkata, along the Ganges.
Dakshineswar Temple has been an integral part of the Hindu culture for hundreds of years as much as Ramkrishna Deb’s sermons. Everyday thousands of devotees offer their prayers to Goddess Kali. The temple opens from 6 AM in the morning till 12 noon & again from 4 PM through 8 PM in the night.
He is an extremely quite person. He was observing us as I & my brother were crouching close to him trying to take his portraits. His neighbors told us his name “Lalbaba“, which translates to “Priest in Red“, probably from the red clothes that he has always got on him.
This is a very old tradition prevalent in many of the Asian religions & cultures. People would feed the unprivileged & the poor on occasions that are auspicious to their families.
In the old days of Rajas & Maharajas, people would sit in long rows along the streets while they are offered clothes & food. It usually had to do with the birth of a child, or a marriage or even a death in the family.
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In this candid street photo, we caught this long line of people sitting along a street near the Ganges. They had been offered food & they were busy eating. Although the times have changed, some of these old Indian cultures still remain.
The picture was taken on hand held Nikon D200 & fill flash at around 7 PM in the evening. I sat on the road next to them to take this picture.
“Do good unto others” & while you are in Calcutta, India, you would see a lot of people going out of their way to help others. The holy place of Dakshineswar is strewn with people asking for alms. And they find people willing to offer them a few coins or food.