The presiding deity of the temple at Koovagam, a tiny village about 30 kilometres outside Villupuram, is Aravan. In the Mahabharata it was prophesised that the Pandavas would win the battle of Kurukshetra only if they sacrificed a ‘perfect’ male from among themselves. Aravan, the virgin son of Pandav prince Arjuna, offered himself up for sacrifice. But he had a request: that he be allowed to spend one night as a married man. No king was willing to give his daughter in marriage only to have her widowed the next day, so finally, Lord Krishna assumed female form and married Aravan, and after a night of sexual bliss, Aravan was beheaded...

By Senthil Kumaran

When I first came to Dhaka from Chittagong, I found it to be a concrete
jungle: a canopy of high-rises over a habitat of machines. Greenery is hard
to find here…environmental degradation is accelerating, persistent and
unabated, making me feel disconcerted...

by Adnan Wahid

Home to India's second largest salt-mines, the small coastal town of Marakkanam has a shoreline that lies beneath the sea's restless backwaters. Here, the chemical compound called sodium chloride is harvested through the process of evaporation. Ideal conditions for this natural saltmaking under the sun include high temperatures and good winds. Rain occasionally plays spoilsport, mixing with the brine and resulting in a recipe gone wrong. The shiny heaped mounds of salt however hide a sad, secret story—the story of the salt-makers...

By N.Jaisingh

Crisis in Bangkok. The saturday clash.

By Olivier Sarbil

They sail the seven seas and one day they come to their last post of call. It is place where man and machine unites. Their tales become one… of hardship, of sorrow, of loss and realization… and finding the real meaning of life, the parallel life...

By Adnan Wahid

AIDS

By Olivier Sarbil

Karen: Sixty years of war

   For fifty years a war has raged in Southeast Asia. A brutal Davy and Goliath battle between the ethnic Karen Hill tribes and the powerful army of the Burmese Junta, have left the Karen scattered and badly battered. The Karen, through sheer determination have managed to hang on and though the Junta has systematically murdered, maimed, raped and burned their villages razed to the ground and are all but vanquished, they have still not quite given up...

By Olivier Sarbil

HAPPINESS IN BARREN LAND

India is the third largest supplier of iron ore to China. The Ramandurga hills, in Bellary district from south India, is estimated to contain more than 1.2 billion tones of iron ore, and 12,000, these "float ore" mines - so called because workers dig by hand for small quantities of iron ore that "float" near the surface...

By Senthil Kumaran

GHOSTS OF KOLKATA

By Yannick Cormier

Commemorating Imam Hussain's Assassination
Each year the Ashura commemorates the "martyrdom" of Imam Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed in the desert of Kerbala by the Sunni Caliph Yazid. Shi’ite's revere Hussain and his father Ali, as the rightful successor to the prophet. Among the Shi'ites, Ashura is a major festival. It commemorates the death of Hussein, son of Imam Ali and grandson of Hazrat Muhammad (sm), on the 10th of Muharram, AH 61 (October 10, 680), in Karbala, Iraq...

By Adnan Wahid

They pick up our garbage, sweep our streets, clean our gutters, load and unload the garbage trucks. They are achuta, or untouchable; member of a particular caste that sits at the very bottom of traditional Hindu community. In India, Mahatma Gandhi gave the name ‘Harijan’ or ‘the son of God’ to this community of untouchable people who work as sweepers and cleaners to our public place clean...

By Adnan Wahid

   Home is where the heart lies. Home is where we want to return to no matter which corner of the world we are in. But for the children of Rahmat-e-Alam Islam Mission, home means a roof over the head, a guarantee of three meals a day and the security of a shelter and safety.
Situated at Tejgaon area in Dhaka, Rahmat-e-Alam Islam Mission is said to be the largest orphanage in Bangladesh...

By Adnan Wahid

RAJASTHAN

Yannick Cormier

Originating from the peaks of Amarkandak in the Shahdol district in central India, the River Narmada reaches the Arabian Sea after a 1,300 mile journey through forests and fields spread across three states: Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Gujarat. The Indian Government's plan to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams funded by the World Bank across the River Narmada and her tributaries wreaked havoc. In the name of development, thousands of indigenous people lost their homes and their way of life...

N. Jaisingh

Tiruvannamalai is one of the most revered pilgrimage sites in India.The town gets its name from the mammoth rocky mountain in its midst called the Annamalai Hill, at the foot of which stands the glorious Arunachaleshwara temple. An architectural marvel that dates back to the 16th century, this temple is best known for its towering gopurams and its thousand-pillared hall. It is particularly sacred to Saivite/Shaivites, as Lord Shiva is said to have incarnated as a glorious flame that knows no beginning nor end at this very place...

Yannick Cormier

In the post-modern world, our secular culture has lost the notion of the sacred. The Kuravar are one of those communities who view much of life as sacred: conception, birth, death, hunting, dreams, harvests, kingship etc. Ritual is an intersection of the profane and the sacred. The drinking of animal blood by the priest is simultaneously profane and sacred...

Senthil Kumaran

In India, the world second largest populated country, only 30% of the people have their own toilet facilities. Others use Public and Dry Latrines (Non Flush). Across in India nearly 1.3 million manual scavengers, (Predominantly Lower Caste people) are employed to remove human excreta using crude implements such as tin plates, small brooms and baskets, and carry them to dumping grounds, despite the Nation having enacted a law against it (The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (Prohibition) Act, in 1993) and also The National Human Rights Commission objecting Manual Scavenging work...

Senthil Kumaran

Bhiwani used to be one of many towns in northern India, undeveloped, paved in dust, with mud roads and plenty of potholes. 150kms west of capital city Delhi, it figured little on the tourist and media radar. But now, after the Beijing Olympics, Bhiwani is hogging the spotlight. Four of the five boxers sent to compete at the Summer Olympics 2008, were Bhiwani boys and three of them made it to the quarter-finals. Vijender Kumar bagged bronze, while the other two Akhil and Jitender Kumar were proud quater-finalists. For small town boys, this was a grand leap...

Yannick Cormier

There are many holy rivers in India, but there is none to match the Ganges fame. Cascading down from the lofty Himalayan peaks, she flows through the northern plains, making virtually every place on her path a pilgrimage site. Finally, at the Sagar Island, off the coast of West Bengal, she breaks into a hundred tributaries that flow into the sea. This point of confluence is called Ganga Sagar...

Yannick Cormier

The tiny non-descript South Indian village of Kulasekarapattinam wakes up to the world of colour and noise during the ten-day Dasara festival. More than a million people converge in this coastal temple-town to celebrate the triumph of good over evil...

N.Jaisingh

JALLIKATTU (Taming the Bull) is a traditional rural sport. It is considered a game for warriors who originated with Tamil culture. The game was nurtured and patronised during erstwhile dynastic rules when young winners were richly rewarded and even marriages were fixed. Jallikattu is the South Indian version of the taming/running of the bull. It is held in the villages of Tamilnadu on the eve of Pongal (Harvest) festival. This sport is also known as Manju Virattu, meaning chasing the bull...

Senthil Kumaran

THE TEXTURE OF THE STONE

Yannick Cormier

GANGA SAGAR PORTRAITS

Yannick Cormier

Narmada is the great Indian river that flows 1,312 kms through the heart of the subcontinent, dividing the northern country from the southern peninsula. From time immemorial, it has served as a religious destination where pilgrims head to wash their sins in its sacred waters. But in the more recent past, the mystic nature of the river has been shrouded by sociological and environmental concerns of the most serious nature...

Yannick Cormier

A shanty row of thatched huts dripping with yesterday rain, sitting over what looks like a garbage dump teeming with dirt, faeces and mosquitoes, long queues before a solitary pump - this is the typical slum scenario in Chennai, one of India four big metropolitan cities. According to a 2001 census survey, forty million people live under such conditions across the country...

Yannick Cormier