KJP Untitled 1

K J Pavan’s photographic series Kusti enters the terrain of the stories obliquely, through the Garadi Mane—traditional wrestling houses of Mysore. The patron deity of the wrestlers is Hanuman, who is both the epitome of strength and devotion. Large murals of the wind-god often adorn the walls of the Garadi Mane. Once thriving spaces, they are now decayed by the ravages of time and declining patronage.
 
In the photographs, men like Kullappa Ustad, his students Santosh, Athtar, Seshan, and the unforgettable “Idli Shivu” continue to train in red earth (kemmannu), with a discipline that is part sport, part spiritual practice.
 
Pavan’s works, in dialogue with Bhat’s drawings, suggest that our vernacular modernity is not so much a reconciliation of past and present as it is how both endure in everyday existence.