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Touch Stones

Yamuna, one of the holy rivers of India, enters plains from Himalayan mountains at Paonta Sahib.

Soon after the monsoon rains, while walking on the bank of the river, I discovered a stones- beach rising from the deep, cool flowing waters of the river, reflecting the changing colour of the sky. As the sun rose in the horizon, the first golden yellow rays fell on each of the millions of stones on the beach, defining the shape, size, volume, colour and the shadow of each stone. The play of sunlight revealed each stone’s contours and its identity also. The stones varied in size from as small as a sand particle to as big as me. Perhaps every stone is as old as our planet. Each carries energy, knowledge and secrets of our planet, of our universe. Sitting by the side of the water, they are linked with my inheritance and cultural identity. By the force of an intuitive compulsion, I started picking the stones that tingled my creative and visual instincts, some because of the shape, some for the colour, some for the texture and some, I do not why. Some had their fate lines carved on them. Some were cruelly treated by the river and some with tender care. Some had other stones embedded in them for a life long bond. The lines, the dents, the holes in the stones tell the story of the river’s journey. I placed one stone on a large stone lying around, then another on it. I continued placing them till the pillar (stambh) of selected stones balanced one on another. The pillar changed the personality of the stones- beach, of its surrounding universe, visibly and spiritually. And the change had an effect on me. It gave me comprehension of my total being- my past, my present and my future. I became alive and one of them in the land of Touch Stones. I made another pillar (stambh) in the vicinity, then another. I went on selecting stones and making pillars till the sun went down behind the hills. I became a medium for each selection. Each selected stone, I realised, had the capacity to change the world around me. I did not feel, I have changed the world. I felt the stones changed my world. The experience was sublime, one of participation in creation. I named my installation, Touch Stones after Rabindranath Tagore’s short story ‘ Parosh Moni’ I arrived at the ‘Touch Stones’ beach next day morning just before the sun rise and captured the experience in every changing light of the Sun in my camera, to share with others. I worked on selected images on my computer to add my creativity to the images.

Ved Nayar

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