A Snapshot Journey: Kabir Yatra Part I

Editor's note: Arundhati Subramaniam, the poetess-editor in her anthology Pilgrim's India writes, 'I'm aware that our experience of the sacred cannot exist anywhere outside of us. But I'm also given to travelling intermittently in quest of it.' She sounds much like the author of our three part series, Vipul Rikhi. She also says, 'Sacred journeys , those disruptive excursions are for those who want to cross thresholds. Its for those who mind the gap terribly.' And the seekers have always been there. Pilgrimage and singing songs that celebrate the deepest spirit of life are very much native to the Indian psyche as a travel tradition. The open road has always been a beautiful excuse to find yourself or get lost or listen in. Join a retelling of 6 days of the Rajasthan Kabir Yatra, held from 23-29 February in and around Bikaner. Where over a hundred rural and urban folk mix on a journey, a discovery of mystic poet Kabir and themselves through song, dance, dialogue and travel. Buddhism often talks of the oneness of the form and the formless. What you can see and what you can sense. This journey too takes off at one level, with people listening and looking for mobile chargers to charge their communication with the outer world at their nightly village halt. As they travel together, there is another charge that walks in for some.Vipul Rikhi in this personal take shares his. A time-capsule look at the Rajasthan Kabir Yatra, through ten pictures and a thousand words. Ten moments described in precisely a hundred words each. Photos by Smriti Chanchani; text by Vipul Rikhi