Water
When it comes to life, its origins, its conscious realization of itself, its attendant rites and rituals, its progress through this world, its transience, its attempts at permanence, its acceptance of its own end, its celebration of the same, its hope of existing again, its pomp and show, its paraphernalia, its moments of doubt, faith, submission, belief, worship . . . then one of the elements that supports it all is water. When it comes to the visible, reduced to the ultimate dynamics of light and form, its essence of fluidity, its viscosity, its strength, its weight, it movements, its freshness, its force, its stillness, its depth, its roar, its silences, its layered depths of colour and darkness, its simultaneous promises and threats of life and death . . . then once again it is the element of water. Kedar Desai takes on the fascinating, yet difficult, task of turning water into his subject. In his pictures we see the work of rendering in fleeting moments various trajectories of life, through the prisms of colour and shade and reflection. Desai captures with practiced quickness those moments of living and existence that revolve around the element of water. Some of the works show the basic support to life that water provides like the shots of birds living around water bodies, their flights reflected in water’s many shifting possibilities. In some of these pictures he is able to metaphorically bring together the encroaching urban existence of humans through broken reflections and the more idealistic presence of birds skimming these reflections. Not all pictures depict water directly but its felt presence is overwhelming - as in the picture of the dry step well, or the majestic movement of the Lord towards the sea. Desai has consciously categorized the greater motions of life - its origins, its celebrations, and its finality through the ritual of immersion and the ultimate promise of regeneration.