8 Yards Of Magic

This ex-constable’s iridescent photographs of his mother in her saris—taken specially for Bazaar India—are all at once disrupting and capturing the heart of the art scene.

- Aashmita Nayar

Somewhere in the heart of Karnataka, draped superbly in electric hues of red, green, and gold, a silver-haired queen of saris surveys her kingdom from her bright green palace. The palms of the south wave gently in deference, as the sun paints her ensemble a fiercer orange.The sky is no match for those eight yards of piercing blue, broken only by delicate gold filigree. Her pallu dances with the wind, while her hair strangely stays still. You can’t see her face, but she reels you in all the more because of it.

The lady in the picture is not famous. But she is the world to her son, a_ constable-turned-self-taughtlensman who is currently disrupting the art scene around the world with his unwonted ability to deliver a provoking tale through his Promethean vision.

Cop Shiva, as he endearingly refers to himself a pet name given to him by the artist community), is as colourful as his photographs. This latest series that he has christened Gowri and Her Many Technicoloured Saris is an ode to his mother’s love for her saris and her baal hair]. My mom doesn’t wear fancy bangles or flowers... Her saris are not expensive, but each one is carefully chosen from her own village, or when she would visit me in Bengaluru—I would take her to the city market there. Like me, she loves colour,’ reveals the 43-year-old artist with gusto. I am not showing her face here because I wanted the focus to be on her sense of fashion. How delicate her sari collection is, and how fond she is of her hair. My mom is very proud of these two things: she wears a sari every day and combs her hair every day.”