On the 1st of August 2010, 12 of us participated in a photowalk to the Bangalore heritage temple sites, Kaadu Malleswara and Nandeeswara, in Malleswaram. I organized this photowalk to help a friend, Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan, who used to conduct photowalks in Chennai before he went to Bristol, UK to pursue higher studies. His course, Masters of Arts in Archaeology for Screen Media (MAASM), looks at archaeology/heritage and media practices and explores ways in which archaeology can be presented to an audience. He had requested some photowalks to be organised to help him with his thesis.

This photowalk was called Ancient Light (from the greek: Archaeo(logy) + Photo(graphy)), and it has a FaceBook group and a  Flickr group.

The requirements for the Ancient Light Photowalk were as follows:

The photowalk would have to be in actual excavation sites, museums, state/public managed heritage sites or libraries. There would be three individuals to take on specific roles:  the archaeological site photographer, the documentary photographer and the tourist. Once the walk was done, the participants would upload photos to the specified group sites.

With all these parameters in mind, I offered to organise the photowalk. I considered the Bangalore Fort, situated in the Krishna Raja Market (KR Market) area of the city, or the Kaadu Malleswara Temple (and the Nandeeswara Teertha located opposite) in Malleswaram,  as possible venues, and chose the latter, as they were less-documented of the two.

One of the unusual features of these temples is that photography is allowed everywhere within the temples; a welcome change from the ‘No photography’ rules enforced strictly in most Hindu temples. I also like the fact that anybody can visit these temples, not just Hindus.

I emailed a photography and other e-groups I belong to, and some close friends. I had a fairly good response, and a dozen of us were present for the photowalk.

The Malleswaram photowalk was less a ‘walk’ than others, as it involved only two temples and their immediate environs.  However, the facets of archaeology, architecture, culture, heritage, religion, and people converged, and so the endeavour kept us busy for over two hours.

It being the middle of the monsoon season, we were concerned about the light; but as it happened, the rain held off, and the evening light did make for interesting images.  We were also able to shoot the lights cast by the temple lamps, as dusk fell. In this sense, it was more interesting than just shooting in broad daylight. We were able to experiment with the use of the flash in the interiors, and settings for outdoor photography as well.

Here is my photodocumentation of the Ancient Light Photowalk, in ten images.

The gopura of the Kaadu Malleswara Temple, after which the locality of Malleswaram is named, caught between sun and shadow.

As soon as we all gathered, we started clicking images of what caught our fancies and our lenses.

The deities can be photographed, making this a most unusual Hindu temple, where usually, photography is not allowed:

People of every age and description visit the temple. …I was struck by this example of three of the four ashramas: a very young boy (brahmacharya) in the extreme left-hand-side corner, a young man (grihasta) on the right-hand-side, and an elderly monk (having passed through vaanapratha to sannyasa) in the middle:

Around the temple, traders such as this flower-seller hawked their wares:

The teertha (spring) in the Nandeeswara Teertha flows out of the mouth of Nandi, falls below into the copper kalasha, and thence washes the Linga in a holy abhisheka:

The Kalyani had live tortoises and fish swimming in it, on the steps were brass renderings:

Light – ancient and timeless – was everywhere. In a symbol of sacrifice, these pumpkins were filled with oil and the wicks lit in front of the shrines:

As the light faded, we all gathered, for another ancient (if not archaeological) tradition – coffee, dosas and companionship, of the lens kind!

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We hope we helped with Chandrachoodan’s thesis, but we certainly helped ourselves to a wonderful evening of photography and heritage, together. ⊕