Pathology of Indian Temples

 

You might wonder why I used the term “pathology” instead of  chronicles of temples or photographic annals or graphic journals of Indian temples.

The reason is  this:  I am a pathologist by profession and a photographer by avocation (avocation is something a person does in addition to a principal occupation, especially for pleasure or hobby).

What my photographs depict are more or less like pathological slides that I view and report every day. They contain every little story of  every little detail of temples much like the pathological slides that reveal the minutia of every disease in the patients’ slide.

But here is one predominant difference.

These slides of temples ( with their stories etched in stone) bring innate happiness and joy to me and I hope to my website visitors as well; unlike the slides I report which have a majority of carcinogen cells and bring pain and sorrow to the patients .

I try to take photographs of things which go unseen by a general visitor to the temples. More or less like the slides which have different patterns under the microscope which go undetected by an untrained eye.

My 35 years of experience as a pathologist has honed these skills in me. When I see any sculpture on a dilapidated temple pillar or a temple wall or ancient scripts on hero stones  (which sometimes are almost eroded due to neglect),  I just want to photograph them  in detail and record it for posterity those lovers and admirers of  ancient temples.

I don’t spend a couple of hours in a temple. I spend at least 2-3 days – reading and talking to the priests there and gaining as much knowledge I can from them. Then I start photographing and somehow, most of the photographs had come out well and several friends and well-wishers have asked me to compile them so that they look at them and talk about them to other temple sculpture lovers.