“Bikaner is popularly known as a tourism destination with its historic buildings built of red sandstone. I began my tour to take pictures of the city from the Junagadh fort—a majestic citadel located on the edge of the old city, a grand complex comprising an inner palace that is multi-tiered with terraces, balconies, and embellishments of carved panels. The outer walls of the fort are decorated with recently painted artworks of folk traditions reflecting life in the streets. It was the evening before Ganesh Chaturthi that I came across a family from Gujarat. Their young son was selling Ganesh idols on the pavement outside the fort. The child sat amidst the Ganesh idols as if they were his toy companions. A temple dedicated to the elephant god, Ganesha located in an inner gateway of the fort came alive the next day with devotees streaming in. The women were decked out in their fineries, mostly in a colour palette of red and gold. Red defines the identity of women here, their marital status even. The decorations to celebrate the festival had ‘selfie points’ along the aisles leading to the lord! The coexistence of the everydayness of life with moments of celebration of the divine and also the self was amusing and profound at the same time. To experience Bikaner through the lens of the colour red made me aware of its intensity, its deep-rootedness, its ubiquity. Red is everywhere, red is all-consuming, red is Bikaner.”
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