‘The photographs showcase different emotions of India and the power of faith. For someone who couldn’t visit the historic gathering, these pictures take me there.’
Moviestar Aamir Khan and Writer Shobhaa De launched The Power of Faith: The Maha Kumbh Mela of 2025, a book of breathtaking pictures of the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj by Neuropsychiatrist Dr Rajesh M Parikh and Pulitzer Prize-nominated Photographer Namas Bhojani at Mumbai’s Jehangir Art Gallery on Tuesday night.
The walls of the stately gallery were lined with large prints of stunning pictures from the book that brought alive the Maha Kumbh, the largest gathering known to mankind, held in January-February this year.
“The photographs showcased the different emotions of India and power of faith. For someone who couldn’t visit the historic event, these pictures take me there,” Aamir Khan said.
Writer Shobhaa De anchored the conversation with Dr Parikh and Namas Bhojani with her scintillating intellect that brought out interesting nuggets of information about the hard work behind the book and the virtues of India’s spiritualism that has bound this country for millennia.
Ms De spoke of her experience at the Kumbh many years ago, recalling her interaction with a Naga sadhu who had renounced life as a nuclear physicist to follow his belief.
“I was struck by how profoundly wise and modest he was. Each time I am confronted by the bigger problems of life, I think of that man who left it all to follow his dharma,” said Ms De, who has attended one big and two mini Kumbh Melas.
Dr Parikh and Namas Bhojani spent 30 days at the Maha Kumbh to capture the historic spiritual event. They took a thousand odd photographs and made a final selection from 500 shortlisted photos.
“He immerses himself almost meditatively while taking pictures,” said Dr Parikh of the soft-spoken Bhojani whose work has appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post and whose early life was spent at an ashram in Pondicherry.
The book does not credit each photographer individually, but has an equal number of photographs by them.
“This book was possible because of Rajesh’s hard work. It was him who did the planning, permissions and coordination. He has always been so generous and gracious,” says Namas whom Dr Parikh first met 40 years ago. Namas was then a young photographer at Bombay magazine, a publication owned by the India Today group.
Now residents of two separate cities — Dr Parikh in Mumbai and Namas in Bengaluru — the friends captured the Maha Kumbh from their own perspective and assembled the photographs together under different subheads in the book — sadhus, pilgrims, faces, hands, river etc.
This is Dr Parikh’s second book of photographs; the first was on Kashmir, Hameen Ast. Director of medical research at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre in Mumbai, he has authored two award-winning books on the coronavirus and is a man of varied interests like photography, painting, writing, debating and learning new languages.
