I met Dr. Sayid Budi of the Toba Photographer Club this morning on the Ghats in Varanasi. Dr. Sayid is the friend of Pablo, a tour guest who attended the Southeast Asia photo tour a few years back. The Toba Photographer Club is an enthusiastic and friendly group of photographers who hail from Medan Indonesia and each year, as a group they travel to an interesting destination to enjoy their passion for photography. It was a great pleasure to meet Dr. Sayid and other members of the club!
For Hindu pilgrims, getting one’s head shaved when visiting Varanasi is a blessing and a ritual. Several members of our group spent some time photographing this amazing sight.
Sadhus, the wandering holy men of India are often seen in Varanasi, because it’s such a sacred and holy place for Hindus.
This morning I met and spoke with, and photographed a “standing Baba”, a Sadhu who’s devotion is shown by doing a form of “penance” or perhaps “devotion”. This man has been standing for three years now. He eats, sleeps and lives 24 hours a day in an upright position. At night the hanging contraption you see here, is how he sleeps.
While speaking to this “Baba” we discussed the Maha Kumbh Mela, an event that he and I had both attended back in 2001. The Maha Kumbh Mela is the largest gathering of humanity on earth, for more information and images about that, you might check this link, showing an article I wrote following my experience there, entitled “Gods Gurus and the Ganges”
Below is a short D3S video showing boat repair on the shores of the Ganges, here in Varanasi
Hi Karl please tell me you will be putting a trip together for the Kumbh Mela in Allalabad in 2013!!
Karl– The standing guy is awesome! Of course, I love his story as much as your photograph! It’s amazing the treasures you find just strolling around these neat corners of the world!
Thanks Anietra, it’s great to hear from you!
Dear Karl Grobl,
Thank you for your email and i hope you’re always in excellent health. your email alone is really an honor to me, let alone the fact that i happen to be appear on your blog. it really blown me away, honestly. your photo caracter and style are my model in my photographic pursue of excellence, still i’m not even close and to see you in personal is a dream deeply buried in the back of my mind for these past 2 years. So, to met you coincidently in india, to be frankly, seem to be too much for me to handle in such short period of time. I would’ve been jumping all around if not thinking you would’ve been consider me as crazy, and i’d miss the opportunity to talk to you. so, thank you very much for the chance to meet you and putting me in your blog. it really a big, big honor to me. I hope we’ll meet again in some place or even cooperating in some work, if it’s not too much to ask.
If you by a chance happen to be visiting indonesia please let me know.
Thank you.
Sayid Budi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/docbudie/5233561929/