Witness a godly wedding

Ramesh Desai's photography exhibition captures various colourful moments of the popular and riotously colourful annual Jyotiba Fair in Wadi Ratnagiri, near Kolhapur

Witness a godly wedding

Ramesh Desai's photography exhibition captures various colourful moments of the popular and riotously colourful annual Jyotiba Fair in Wadi Ratnagiri, near Kolhapur

Photographer Ramesh Desai's latest exhibition, titled Jyotiba: A Photography Exhibition explores the colour and religious fervour that encapsulates Wadi Ratnagiri every year where lakhs of devotees come to visit the Jyotiba hill temple.

The entire landscape turns magenta with the gulal thrown around

Located 17 kilometres to the northwest of Kolhapur, nearly three lakh devotees, mostly farmers and peasants, visit the temple on the full moon night of Chaitra and Vaishakh (April), every year. They come from Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka apart from Maharashtra. The highlight of the festival is the celebration of lord Jyotiba referred to as Dakkahancha Raja. Here, devotees shower and spray the entire landscape with gulal. Apart from painting the town in hues of magenta and pink, people dance with huge decorated sticks called Sasankathi.
In the evening, people walk to the neighbouring temple of Jyotiba's sister Yammai (approximately 25 minutes away) with a Palki, as a ceremony of attending her wedding.

u00a0Desai's love for tourist spots and outdoors is clearly seen in the pictures where the masses are the heroes.

"The colour of the gulal and the Sasankathi is what attracts me to this festival. Gulal makes a very interesting composition in a photograph," he adds. Apart from this festival he has also visited the area on Sundays, when married couples, whose family deity is Jyotiba, come to seek blessings from the god. This exhibition is the result of Desai's visit to Jyotiba over the past four to five years.

At Piramal Art Gallery, The National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point.
Till Saturday, July 9
Time 12 pm to 8 pm;u00a0
Call 66223737