Digital Photograph

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What happens when an unstoppable force comes in contact with an immovable object?

When one exists, the other cannot. 

In the monsoon of 2018 I decided to take a detour while travelling from Raipur to Kumharpara, where I was living at that time, and chanced upon a memorial/ monument in the form of a battalion of cement soldiers for the armed forces. These figures, some distance from the road, hidden by a curtain of trees and bushes, caught my attention. 

Given that I was travelling through the forests of Chattisgarh, these cement soldiers- with no eyes, and their cement rifles were significant in the forces they symbolised.

The characteristic of being immovable or unstoppable is dynamic and isn’t assigned to just one image, thing or idea. It is the coming together of forces- the unrelenting antagonism between all of them. Sometimes direct head-on collision, and at other times a more nuanced, or subversive attack at each others’ foundations, consciously and sometimes unconsciously. 

There is no clear attacker and attacked anymore, it is violence manifested in various forms. People from the same region could be fighting against each other, even though they have nothing personal against one another. 

The battalion of cement soldiers marching quietly in the forests, in some of the images seen from a vantage point, makes one wonder about the implications of such a memorial; where have these soldiers come from? Where is their home? What or whom are they marching towards, and against? And having no eyes, what do they see?